LinkedIn has always been the go-to platform for reaching professionals. Whether you’re a company recruiting top talents, a business needing high-quality clients, generate leads on LinkedIn for your business or a professional looking for work. LinkedIn is the best place to find the people you’re looking for. In this article, we’ll help you set up a good LinkedIn profile. But first, things first. What is LinkedIn? And why LinkedIn?
LinkedIn: An Overview
LinkedIn is a social media platform where users can create content, share content, and connect with other users. Like other social media sites, it’s a beautiful place to socialize or grow/build an audience. The difference between LinkedIn from other social media platforms is its focus on the ‘professional’ scene.
LinkedIn is a place where you can find your dream job, showcase your skills, or connect with experts in your industry. You can even use LinkedIn to promote your business or direct users to your blog or website.
LinkedIn Basics: How to Succeed on LinkedIn
LinkedIn is an amazing social platform for businesses and brands. Here’s how to make sure you’re setting up your LinkedIn for success:
Setting Up Your LinkedIn
After signing up on LinkedIn, the first thing you’ll do is create your business profile page. You can also choose the type of account you want. LinkedIn has three kinds of plans: sales, career, and business plans.
If you’re creating a LinkedIn profile, you must choose a profile picture that looks professional. It shouldn’t be a selfie or a photo covering your face. Your profile banner image should make your profile stand out. In the headline and summary, you must showcase your strengths, achievements, and current skills. You can also upload your resume and your best works for display on your LinkedIn profile. On the last part of the page, you should add your education, work history, and core skills. You can add as much as 50 skills on LinkedIn and it’s strongly recommended to list 40-50. The more skills you include, the better your chances in matching a lot of roles. Basically, all the things you would put on your resume should be found on your LinkedIn profile page.
The summary section is one of the most read parts of your profile. Here you should include a basic summary of what you do and how you help others in your industry. This part is often included in search engines so make sure to add important and relevant keywords. You can also add videos or images in this portion to bring more life into your profile.
Use Keywords Properly
Do you want your profile to be discovered easily? Use keywords. Relevant and important keywords should be found on your headline, summary, and skills section. When deciding what keywords to use, try to think like a recruiter. What skills and roles will they be searching for the job you want?
Growing Your Network
LinkedIn networks are usually composed of professionals who know and trust each other. They’ve usually shared offices, schools, colleges, or have been working in the same industries. After setting up your profile, you should begin building your professional network by connecting with people you know.
There are also many LinkedIn prospecting tools you can use to build your network. First is the invitation option. You can search the name of a person (or their email address) you know and add them on LinkedIn via invitation. These people will become your 1st-degree connections.
Another way to connect is through InMail messages. InMail messages are private messages you can send to any LinkedIn member. InMails are only available for premium LinkedIn users. Following someone on LinkedIn is another form of connection. If you follow a person’s posts, you can see their posts and articles. You don’t have to be connected to them or for them to accept your invitation.
Creating Engaging Content
Like other social platforms, LinkedIn is a place for sharing and posting content. Despite its professional scene, LinkedIn posts can also be entertaining. You can use LinkedIn to provide updates and other helpful content that will aid your followers/connections.
In a recent research, findings show that articles with images get more views than those without. LinkedIn also prefers users to upload content directly to their platform instead of simply posting a link to another site. This will help you get more engagements, plus the content you share will be read by your connections.
Content shouldn’t also be always about work. You can also share personal information about you or your brand. Also, experiment with different kinds of posts. Try short posts that get read on the timeline or long-form stories that capture the reader’s attention. If you want to be successful on LinkedIn, keep your content fresh, varied, and relevant to your connections. This will get people excited and will follow you more.
Consistency
Being consistent is a great way to make progress on LinkedIn. In fact, many marketers today have their own posting and scheduling strategy. Once you’ve made your LinkedIn account, it’s not ideal to simply log on two times a month. You have to be consistent and committed to creating meaningful content and building relationships on the platform.
Although posting consistently is good, too much can also hurt your presence. According to statistics from Onalytica, influencers who post more than 50 times a month have an average of 26 engagements per post, while those who post around 30-50 times a month, get around 56 engagements per post. So, sometimes less posts are better for engagements.
You don’t even have to spend hours on the platform each day. Just 20 minutes a day to nurture your network, engage with other people’s content, and share your own is enough. When commenting or sending messages, remember to personalize your messages and avoid sales content. Spamming someone isn’t the best way to build a good relationship on LinkedIn.
Aside from posting, you also have to be consistent in keeping your profile up to date. Make sure that your headline, photo, and experience listed are correct and current. Doing this will allow people to engage with you more.
Mastering Engagements
How do you maintain your connections on LinkedIn? The best way is to focus on engagements. There are a lot of people who just scroll through their feed aimlessly without liking or sharing anything. These people are often called crawlers or LinkedIn crawlers. Don’t be like that. Whenever you see a good post, show your appreciation by liking or reacting to it.
Get Recommendations
Recommendations help you seem more credible on LinkedIn. So, how do you get one? Recommendations can be done by asking for them from the people you’ve worked with. If you’re a writer, it could be your editor or client. If you work in the tech industry, it could be your coworker, manager, or your boss.
Building Community
Building your community on LinkedIn is also a great way to make the most of the platform. There are many ways to build a community on LinkedIn. First is through employee networks. Employee networks are simply a collaboration between colleagues on LinkedIn. They can usually connect with their organization/company’s page.
Next are LinkedIn groups. These are groups that are created to attract people with the same interests or ideologies in your organization. If you’re a brand with lots of loyal and active customers on LinkedIn, you can take advantage of groups to interact and engage with them.
Avoid being too salesy
Even if your goal on LinkedIn is to market yourself and your business—avoid sales talk as much as possible on your connections and LinkedIn posts. Don’t post directly about your product because people will think it’s an ad, and ads turn people away. Instead, engage through conversations, and ideas. Once people agree with you, they’ll usually check out your website or the product you’re offering.
Use LinkedIn To Network, Learn, and Grow
Although LinkedIn is a social platform, it’s also a great place to share ideas, resources, and build relationships with other professionals. LinkedIn is also a wonderful place for discussions among like-minded professionals.
