As you start building up contacts on LinkedIn, it becomes harder to remember where a particular contact originally came from especially if it is not someone you interact with regularly. In fact, once your number of contacts goes over 500, recollection of that first introduction is nearly impossible.

LinkedIn, however has recognised this issue and has created a "tagging" feature to help you track and organise your various contacts.

So how do you set tags?

1. View the contact you would like to tag. At the top of their profile, you’ll see a "relationship" tab. Within this tab, you’ll see a link that says "tag". 
2. You can either add a new tag or mark your contact with an existing tag E.g. Was the contact one of a group of people you recently met at a conference? You could mark your contact as "medical conference".
3. Contacts are not restricted to one tag, they can have multiple tags as long as they are relevant to reminding you about where they came from.

When it comes to making new business contacts and growing your professional network, LinkedIn is certainly the network of choice. But it’s not enough simply having a LinkedIn account?

You may have already noticed that most small businesses don’t have a LinkedIn company page or at best have a very basic page. But without a company page, it’s very hard for people to find out more about your business. If this is you, how did you imagine a potential connection was going to find out who you are, what your company does or why they should even form a relationship or connection with you?

Sure you can find someone’s website by clicking the "contact info" box on the bottom right of their profile summary box but few people notice this feature. Most people will, however, click on the company name which links to the company page.

Sending a blank connection request is not enough – You need a reason to be connecting with someone on LinkedIn

I recently received an invitation to connect with someone I had met at a conference. I didn’t remember her but she remembered me. Fortunately I messaged her back to ask if I could help her and she then reminded me where we’d met. I have also had LinkedIn invites form business associates who someone else has suggested should get in contact with me so that I can advise them on social media for example.

What both these examples emphasise is that you need to remind people or explain to them why you want to connect with them. They may have no ideas who you are or why you actually want to connect with them.

Lately, there has been a lot of online chatter regarding LinkedIn’s controversial policy of SWAM or “SiteWide Auto Moderation” to give it it’s full name. You can read more about it here….

• The Drum
• Forbes
• Sydney Morning Herald

In brief, SWAM is a measure that LinkedIn introduced to reduce spam in LinkedIn groups. Group owners have the discretion to block any member they regard as a spammer. If for any reason you’re blocked from a group, all your discussions in all other groups have to be moderated by the group owners before they are published. This is pretty much a death sentence for your LinkedIn account as few group administrators have the time or inclination to check the moderation queues that group discussions attract. Your comments and posts simply stop appearing in groups.

The question is, what to do about it?

Here are the facts

• LinkedIn claim that SWAM has reduced complaints about spam by 30% to 50% this year
• Only 0.1% of LinkedIn users have been affected by SWAM (although the percentage of active group members is almost certainly higher)