Today I received several notifications from Canadian Women in Communications (CWC). I am a proud member of CWC and follow them on Twitter, LinkedIn & Facebook (hence the multiple notifications). They offered their membership a challenge …to complete 10 tasks as listed by them, on our LinkedIn pages.  The reward … eligibility in a draw for some nifty prizes and, more importantly, the opportunity to expand your online presence and professional network.

In 2010 there are numerous ways you can “put yourself out there”.  Most of these ways involve the internet. You can tweet on Twitter, you can be a friend on Facebook,  you can write a blog  on pretty much anything your heart desires.  I have found that one of the most useful tools professionally is LinkedIn.  There are many more tools out there, however, none of them are of any use if you don’t utilize them to their full potential.  You can sign up, log in or create an account to give you an online presence, but you have to keep the content alive and engage your potential audience for them to take notice.  So many LinkedIn pages I visit are blank. There is the name and perhaps a contact or two, maybe even your current title or occupation and then nothing.  How often will you visit a page that offers you no insight or fresh news? Not often, perhaps twice just to confirm that no one is active on that page.

I applaud CWC for challenging their membership to become better communicators, and therefore better members.  I would like to challenge all of you to take a look at this very simple list, even if you are not a member of CWC, and to fulfill the tasks on it.  You will be rewarded by expanding your professional network and your online presence.

What more could you ask for?

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