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Seeing Who You Know and How You Know Them Just Got Easier With LinkedIn

Most of us are familiar with “Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon” – the idea that every person in Hollywood is separated by six acquaintances or less from the famous actor. Most people think of this in terms of celebrity, but imagine how powerful this idea could be in the professional context of your own life.

Professional goals become more attainable when you’re able to connect and collaborate with others who can help you achieve them. Finding the best path to meeting these key contacts can be daunting though.

Today, we’re introducing a new “How You’re Connected” tool on LinkedIn profiles that aims to make that process much easier by helping you find the best path or strongest commonalities shared between you and the individual that could be the key to obtaining your next success.

When looking for an introduction to someone you may not know yet, you will now not only see “who” in your network knows them on their Profile, but also “how” they know each other to help you decide the best contact to request an introduction from.

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So let’s say you’re an advertising professional looking for an introduction to the CMO of a company you’d love to do business with. You might find one mutual connection attended school with her before she kick started her career but another worked with her recently on a very high-profile campaign. Chances are, the connection that worked with her recently is more likely to have a stronger, more relevant connection and therefore be the best source for an introduction.

This feature will begin rolling out to English members around the world beginning today. In the months to come, we’ll look to continue to expand on the types of insights we provide so that you can make informed decisions around building and expanding your professional network on LinkedIn.