I got this email from LinkedIn today and was rather surprised to see that 2,188 people in my network changed jobs in 2011. My network is roughly 7.5k strong so this works out at about 30% job hoppers - a very interesting figure.

But before we start thinking about how on earth all these people found new jobs in a recession, we have to remember that this report is generated based on people updating their job titles. Merely updating your profile doesn't necessarily mean you are in a new position. Lots of people tinker with their profiles for various reasons. Not to mention everyone who is a freelancer or business owner, these users certainly change their profiles but don't actually move anywhere.

The purpose of this email from LinkedIn is of course to drive more activity to their network. The idea is that you will a.) want to see who has moved where, b.) compare their profile to yours and look to improve it and c.) think about new opportunities for yourself. It's funny how emails are still the killer app of the Internet, even in this social world that we live in.

And by the way, if you know people looking to move jobs have them check out the LinkedIn Resume Builder which is a very handy tool that automatically generates a neat resume from your LinkedIn profile.

And as if that tool weren't enough, if you want to keep a real time eye on what your network is up to and who's moving jobs when, you can use the Job Change Notifier which scans your connections and tells you when somebody moves on.

So you're looking for a job. People tell you to use LinkedIn as it's the professional network and full 'o recruiters and vacancies. But if you have a limited network and you have exhausted it, what do you? 

I got a LinkedIn message last night from a connection who is looking for a a new job. Shiraz Bashir is actively looking for a new role in the Cloud and to get his message to reach out on LinkedIn, he cleverly asks people to click 'like' on his current status update. When I click 'like' on his update, my entire network will be notified about Shiraz' job search through me. If he gets 10 people clicking 'like' you're looking at a potential reach of about 2,000 LinkedIn users (as most LinkedIn users have around 200 connections).

Is this what they mean by going viral'? Well, this is how viral starts. If clicks carry on you get the snowball effect of free advertising.

As both a Personal Branding and LinkedIn trainer, I get a few recurring questions in my workshops and seminars. I thought I would compile a little list with questions and answers here, hopefully they will be useful to you. Most questions are related to sales, marketing and recruitment which is basically the type of professionals I tend to train.

Here goes the 21 LinkedIn questions and answers:

1. How do you boost your LinkedIn profile SEO?

LinkedIn operates a bit like Google did 10 years ago, the more keywords the better ranking you will get for a while. The algorithm of the search rankings are that you will be bumped up and if people actually take action – click on your profile in the search results – that tells LinkedIn you are relevant for those search terms. IF users don’t click on you, you will be sent down to page 16 in no time and classed a spammer by the LinkedIn search engine.

To get better ranking make sure to insert relevant keywords in your headline, in your job title and in your summary. Use keywords such as industry, location, company names (if that’s allowed), and even names of people. Bring it down to a micro level with versions of software and even post codes.

See more at How to Make Google Love Your LinkedIn Profile.

2. How to use advanced X-Ray searches to find anyone on LinkedIn?

On LinkedIn, you can only see the people that are three degrees away from you or members of the same group.

Here's a post about a golden oldie application on LinkedIn, the Amazon Reading List. Some of you might already be using this, I wasn't until a few weeks back.