LinkedIn professes that it is the world’s largest professional network with over 706+ million users in more than 200 countries and territories worldwide. With that kind of reach, can you afford not to take your LinkedIn profile seriously?
In 2020 a presence on LinkedIn is a must-have for any professional and business out there, so here are our top ten tips on the best ways to make LinkedIn work for you to position you well and boost your network.
1. Your Profile
You are far more than your job title, and you can prove that via your LinkedIn profile. Beyond the summary and job experience sections that most people focus on filling out, there are also more than half a dozen other sections that showcase your interests and accomplishments in specific areas that are not featured within your job description. Filling out your profile not only helps people search for you, it also makes LinkedIn more likely to show your profile in search results.
2. Become an All-Star!
If you haven’t already reached it, try to achieve All-Star status! To get All-Star status, LinkedIn recommends three “must-haves”: your photo, current position, and the industry you work in. Make sure you complete all sections of your LinkedIn profile and replace or update those 10 buzzwords in your profile.
3. Contacts
Building a strong network is about making and maintaining connections. So, make sure you gather business cards at meetings and events and ensure you connect with them online soon afterwards. Look at importing your email contacts and every few months see if you have any new contacts from your address book to add. Send personal messages to invite connections - tell them why you’d like to connect and make sure your reason is specific to the individual.
4. Engagement
Each time you go on LinkedIn, take a few moments to read and like a few recent posts in your newsfeed. It ensures your name regularly appears in your connections’ newsfeeds and helps you stay relevant in their minds.
It shows people who look at your profile that you are active on the site and interested in others’ work.
5. Post or share
You need to be posting on a regular basis. Consider writing articles for your industry. Think about what your network would like to hear about and what fits with your brand. Stay relevant to your audience; think about current events, industry topics, industry wide news and perhaps even the occasional joke. If you struggle finding content, then enlist the help of a quality PR consultant, like our team at Profiler PR, who can monitor topics for you, and write blogs and articles to keep your profile thriving and connections growing.
6. Keep it short and sweet
LinkedIn posts should be like a short little summary, rather than the full book. Consider using videos or images to grab people’s attention and don’t be afraid to add your view to stories relevant to you and to your connections.
7. Keep to office hours
To gain the most traffic to your fabulous piece of content, you’ll need to avoid the midnight hours where everybody’s asleep. If you like to write up content at night, save it for the morning! Ideally, choose a time between 9am to 5pm. where most professionals are at work. Social Media scheduling apps like HootSuite can help you with timing things right.
8. Stay in touch
Congratulate people on promotions and awards and when their company is featured in the news for something positive. The easiest way to do this is to check your LinkedIn notifications to see who has found new work or been promoted recently. When you travel (around covid restrictions), let people know you are in their city and invite them out for coffee or arrange to hook up on Zoom, Teams or Facetime when you have a spare half hour. This is a great way to get face time with contacts you otherwise might go months, if not years, without seeing again in person.
9. Pass along helpful information.
This could be content, new job opportunities, networking events, etc. Posting this information for your entire network to see is great. However, not everyone checks LinkedIn regularly. Whenever you come across information that would be particularly helpful to a connection you want to form a stronger relationship with, email it to them personally to show that you want to help them become more successful.
10. Be a professional matchmaker
Be a professional matchmaker! Introduce people to someone new. Once a month, look at your LinkedIn contacts and status updates and see if you can make any connections that could be winning for all.
Keen to grow your profile online? At Profiler PR we have the skills to boost your online profile, write articles and blogs, and help you and your business make the most out of LinkedIn. Get in touch today via hello@profilerpr.com.au