LinkedIn has been getting more buzz than usual lately due to  recently surpassing 100 million users. Here’s an interesting infographic with details.

LinkedIn makes it really easy to import contacts from your mail system, and it does NOT send annoying automatic e-mails to your contacts. Instead, LinkedIn displays a list of your contacts, including details about who is already using LinkedIn and how many contacts they have, and then you can manually check the boxes for the people you want to send connection invitations to.

To import your contacts, visit your LinkedIn profile and click on “Add Connections” in the upper right corner. Follow the steps to import contacts from whatever e-mail system you use.

Note that if you use Microsoft Outlook like I do, you will need to export your contacts to a file that can then be imported to LinkedIn.

How to Export Contacts from Outlook:

Click on File > Import and Export

Choose Export to a File and click Next

Choose Comma Separated Values (DOS) and click Next

Select the contact folder you want to export and click Next

In the Save File As field, decide where you want to save the file (I usually save mine to my Desktop) and give the file a name like “Contacts.” Click Next, and then click Finish. Your file will generated and you can then import it to LinkedIn.