Serving as your online resume is nothing new to Linkedin. It’s been doing this for the last ten years, and Burchard & Associates has blogged about making the most of it here, here, and here.

We felt it was time to point out some aspects of this professional social network that are newer and could possibly enhance your experience beyond looking up new hires or new bosses. Let’s dive in.

Influencers

This is a great way to be exposed to cutting edge insights and information from some of the business world’s top minds. People like Jack Welch, Richard Branson, and Guy Kawasaki provide regular posts about what’s hot and happening in the business-world today.

To find Linkedin Influencers, click on News, and then browse either Influencer Posts or All Influencers.

Channels

With Linkedin Channels you can stay on top of industry news and events in a whole new way. While there is a definite emphasis on content from the aforementioned “Linkedin Influencers”, it’s easy to see stories from your connections and people you follow too.

The Channels setup is easy. Click on the “News” tab at the top of your LinkedIn page, and then click on the “Channels” tab to find topics you’d like to follow.

Profession Portfolio

Text heavy resumes are better for paper. Linkedin’s recent addition of Portfolio lets you feature projects you’ve worked on with images, videos, or presentations. You can add these to the summary, work, experience, and education portions of your profile, and they show up as thumbnails directly beneath a specific job, work summary, or education summary.

Simply go to your profile and click on Edit. The Summary, Experience, and Education sections each have an icon that looks like a box with a plus sign in the corner. It’s to the left of each section’s edit button. Click this box to upload your file.

Contacts

This is probably my favorite recent addition to Linkedin. It pulls all your email and Linkedin contacts into one handy place. Not only does it remind you of someone’s birthday or if they nabbed a coveted company position, Contacts also let’s you quickly pull up recent conversations you’ve had with people. This is especially beneficial if you are heading into a meeting with someone and want to quickly scan meeting notes, comments, or notifications. The best part is that Contacts is also an iPhone app to make staying connected and informed on your business network that much easier.

Contacts is still being rolled out to the general public. If you want to get an early invitation click here.

Endorsements

While there is some debate as to the quality of this feature, there’s no denying its popularity.

Endorsements are a fast and easy way for people to recommend each other’s skills. While long-form testimonial recommendations are still the favorite, Endorsements provide the viewer with a top-level picture of a person’s skill set.

Endorsements also serve another purpose. According to Linkedin, you are “4 times more likely to be viewed” if you’ve been endorsed. Think about the power behind that if a potential employer personally knows one of your endorsers. This new addition can be a very powerful tool in your networking life.