LinkedIn is generally viewed as a must-have nowadays if you're in college, job searching, own a business or are interested in networking on a professional level with others. It's basically a functional resumé and something that all employers keep a close tab on.

That being said, it can also be viewed upon from a different angle. It has a very large community of active users that have filled in details such as their skills, residence, occupation, interests, connections, groups, etc. which is a gold mine for marketers.

Below are a few simple ways to get in front of a targeted audience, collect invaluable feedback and acquire much needed users during the early stage of your business.

- Join relevant groups and contribute to the discussions. Don't just throw in a link to your site. Help the inquirer with his/her problem, and then direct them to a relevant blog post you write for further reading or a product you built which helps solve this problem. Also, start your own discussions and join in with people answering them. Answering your own question can at times be a creative way to jump around the self-promoting aspect of just attaching links to other people's posts.

- In addition to posting/commenting on discussions in groups, if you look in the top right corner of each group's homepage you'll see it states how many members are in the group.

If you click through on the link, you'll be shown a list of every member in that group, and the option to directly message most of the members, assuming they do not have any privacy settings on. Now it's up to you to put together a semi-personal, very short message (3-4 sentences max!). This will allow you to message anyone on LinkedIn whether you are connected or not.

- On the right of the search bar for LinkedIn offers some great advanced settings that enable you to hyper-target based on geography, profession, relevance to your network, and so forth.

This is a great way to segment a certain group and reach out to individuals with a specific attribute.

Ex. When I decided to start HombreSalsa, I chose to search for "office managers" to reach out to since they often have a snack budget for their office. I was quickly able to strike up friendly conversations, generate leads and even close sales via my LinkedIn inbox. Don't underestimate the power of simply reaching out to people when you can provide value to them.

After clicking through on "Advanced", you'll be taken to the Advanced search setting page