When was the last time you took a deep dive into LinkedIn?

Oh, sure, I know you click through on the occasional article or career update, but when was the last time you really took a look under the hood? You might be surprised by what you find there. LinkedIn is in a constant state of improvement and they’re adding new tools all the time. (They’re deleting some of the less-than-stellar tools, too.)

With all that in mind, here are four things you might do heading into 2014 to improve your use of LinkedIn and everything it offers.

Step #1: Put the Alumni Tool to Work for You. One of the greatest benefits of LinkedIn is that you can draw insights from the data that’s available to you inside the platform. LinkedIn has more than 175 million members whose journeys through college, graduate school, early career, mid career and late career can be seen on LinkedIn. On a micro basis, you can review the Profiles of people whose careers you want to emulate. By studying their career paths, you can see what has worked for them and learn from their mistakes.

But LinkedIn isn’t just for viewing career paths on a micro basis – you can view them on a macro basis as well. There is no other organization that tracks large scale data sets about career outcomes the way LinkedIn does, so it’s a great way to see what’s working and what’s not working in people’s careers.

The tool used to track these macro trends is the Alumni Tool. You’ll find the Alumni Tool in various places throughout LinkedIn, but the easiest way to access it is to go to your Network menu and drag down to the sub-menu item that says Find Alumni. There, you’ll see where your fellow alumni live, where they work and what they do. Below that information, you’ll see the connections you have to people who attended your university.

You’ll come across a lot of data in the Alumni Tool, but data is just data unless you derive insights from it. So be sure to explore the Alumni Tool with some veracity. Find out what people who attended your school ended up doing with their careers. Compare the results of your school to other schools by clicking the change school link at the top of the page. You can even add filters by clicking the search function at the bottom of each section – adding filters lets you sort through the data with a fine toothcomb to see commonalities or insights that will help you as you choose the next steps for your career.

The most important thing about sorting through the data is to find insights that you can apply to your own choices. If you’re thinking of going back to graduate school, the Alumni Tool is a great place to see what kinds of jobs people landed after studying what you’re thinking about studying. It can also be used to explore whether people who worked at Company A during their early career worked at top companies later in their lives.

In the end, the Alumni Tool is like having a crystal ball that can show you how your life may play out if you go down one path vs. another path. And that’s a great tool to have.

Step #2: Think 5 Years Ahead. In an ideal world, the only job you ever need is the first one you got. That actually happens for some people, but in most cases, you’ll work at several different companies during the course of your career. Since that’s the case, it’s a good idea to set your sights about 5 years out and start working your way towards that goal.

For example, you might be working in a marketing communications firm but would someday like to be a brand manager for a consumer package goods company. Or you might be working at a large CPA firm, but really want to own your own business someday. No matter what your long-term plans, it’s always good to stay connected with people who might be able to help you with your transition down the road. So don’t be afraid to reach out and connect to a wide variety of people on LinkedIn. They may not directly influence your life today, but if you stay connected with them and keep them posted on your whereabouts, they can help you three, four or five years down the road.

Step #3: Add Something New to Your Profile at Least Once a Month. By adding new experiences to your Profile, you keep your connections up-to-speed on the progress you’re making in your job. When you make changes to your Profile, your connections are notified that you’ve made updates. By doing this on a regular basis, you’re staying on people’s radar screens. Better still, you’re keeping future employers informed of all the new things you’re learning at your job.

It may seem as though keeping people updated about your career isn’t all that important. And the truth is, in most cases, the people who see your update have a lot of other things on their mind, so they won’t catch every last update. But every time you catch someone’s eye, a little neural connection is stored in their brain. A year or two from now, that person may not remember the specifics of each and every update, but they’ll have an overall impression of you that you’re a bright, hardworking professional with a lot of potential. And that’s a great impression to leave on somebody’s mind.

Step #4: Nurture Your Community. Your community includes a broad range of people you’re connected to on LinkedIn. Some of those connections are people who are simply included in your contacts database, which is fine, and you’ll want to continuously reach out to them. But your larger community involves the Groups and associations you’re part of through LinkedIn. These can include Industry Groups, Alumni Groups and Interest Groups.

As with all things involving LinkedIn, it’s more about the quality of your Groups rather than the quantity of your Groups, so resist the temptation to continuously add new Groups to your list. It’s better to stay focused on a handful of Groups and provide real value to those Groups than to be a member of dozens of Groups and not actively participate in them.

All that said, it’s perfectly alright to go into your Groups and ask for advice or input on career questions. That’s one of the many benefits of Groups – they put you in touch with people who can provide you guidance on issues or situations that they’ve confronted in the past.

It’s important to remember, however, that everything you say on LinkedIn (or any other social network) is public information, so don’t include anything that a) is proprietary to your company or your client’s companies, or b) you wouldn’t want your grandmother to read.

If you’re even remotely on the fence about whether it’s appropriate to mention something on a Group, err on the side of caution and don’t do it. A simple phrase to keep in mind is, “When in doubt, keep it out.” That’ll prevent you from saying anything you’ll regret in the future.

The Bottom Line on LinkedIn.

In my humble opinion, LinkedIn gets overlooked because the media tends to focus on Twitter, Facebook and Pinterest more than they focus on LinkedIn. But if you’re a businessperson, you might consider making LinkedIn your number one social media tool. After all, it’s a great way to stay in touch with businesspeople who might end up being future clients.

Jamie Turner is the CEO of the 60 Second Marketer and 60 Second Communications, a marketing communications agency that works with national and international brands. He is the co-author of “How to Make Money with Social Media” and “Go Mobile” and is a popular marketing speaker at events, trade shows and corporations around the globe.