Are you taking full advantage of LinkedIn in your active or passive career search? Position yourself for more career opportunities, more interviews, and more target industry connections by leveraging these six LinkedIn facts.

Your LinkedIn profile is 11 times more likely to be viewed if you use a photo. If you don’t already have one, you need to get one today. And don’t waste your time with homemade shots – isn’t your career worth the meager $150 investment for a professional head shot?

CEO’s have an average of 930 LinkedIn connections. What do they know that you don’t? They know that LinkedIn is here to stay. They know that the more connections you have, the more likely you are to find the connection you need when you need it. They know that the more connections you have, the more search results LinkedIn will give you when you’re looking for someone.

Only 4% of US Internet users have shared blog posts on LinkedIn. That means the door is wide open for you to do so. Consider that 41% of millionaires and 88% of the 2013 Inc 500 use LinkedIn. If you care to be seen by either audience, LinkedIn is where it’s at.

LinkedIn members join an average 7 groups. Yet LinkedIn allows you to join 50. Why? Because they designed the social networking site to capitalize on group engagement. Joining the maximum of LinkedIn groups enables you to dramatically extend your network reach, which gives you deeper industry penetration and more potential linkages to target companies, recruiters, and hiring executives.

To reach 60% of your LinkedIn audience, post 20 updates per month. If you’re struggling to leverage networking or company targeting, you need to leverage LinkedIn status updates. And doing so at the 20-per month level – just 5 per week – will give your career brand and candidacy the visibility they deserve.

For maximum engagement, post on Tuesdays between 10-11 am eastern. To optimize the shares your posts get, upload them at 10 am or 2 pm eastern.

These statistics point to some of the key best practices you will need to take full advantage of in 2015. With the US economy unthawing and record numbers of job seekers entering the marketing, it’s critical that you position your LinkedIn profile in the best ways possible. This means ensuring your profile has:

Exceptional summary, employment, and education content

A professional photo

A minimum of 500 LinkedIn connections (and consistent growth beyond 1000+)

Thought leadership in evidence via original/repurposed content and shared blog posts

As close to 50 LinkedIn Group memberships as you can get without sacrificing quality

Regular LinkedIn status updates, whether you are in active or passive search, to
remain front of mind with your network

Shared at ideal post times to get the most out of your updates and blog posts