LinkedIn is one of the premier online networking sites for business professionals worldwide. Chances are you’re already on LinkedIn and have begun to build your connections there.

But there’s something more you need to do beyond building an excellent profile and inviting people to connect. You should maintain your LinkedIn account with a few bi-monthly tasks to keep your profile fresh, protect the connections and recommendations you’ve gathered there, and maximize your LinkedIn account.

5 easy bi-monthly LinkedIn maintenance tasks

1. Make sure your profile is up to date. Even a month or two of a business activity can make your LinkedIn profile a bit out of date. Get in the habit of reviewing your profile every couple of months to make sure it’s the best reflection it can be of what you offer.
2. Export your contacts. Things happen. On rare occasions, LinkedIn’s been known to remove someone’s profile. So get in the habit of preserving the contact information you’ve taken the time to build with these easy steps: 1. Click on Contacts. 2. Scroll to bottom of screen and click on Export Connections. 3. Fill in the required items and click Export. If you don’t want to actually add the connections to your address book immediately, click Save in the pop-up screen and file in a folder for safekeeping. Done!
3. Export your profile. Do this for the same reason as exporting your contacts. 1. Click on Profile. 2. Click on the Adobe PDF icon (presently in the right column). 3. Save your profile (which will include your recommendations) to your desired folder using the pop-up screen. Done.
4. Request recommendations. Consider clients who’ve been well served by you in the last couple of months, then approach them for a LinkedIn recommendation if they’re on LinkedIn too. 1. Click on Profile > Recommendations. 2. Click on the Request Recommendations tab and fill in the blanks. And while you’re at it, why not leave a recommendation for someone who recently served you exceptionally well?
5. Add one new action make better use of LinkedIn. As with all social networking, you get out of it what you put into it. Just accruing connections will only get you so far. One new action every couple of months is easy to add to your marketing tasks without undue demand on your time. For good ideas, start with Five Ways LinkedIn Can Help Advance Your Career and Ten Ways to Use LinkedIn.

Making Mediation Your Day Job by Tammy Lenski is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. Based on a work at MakingMediationYourDayJob.Lenski.com.