Like many business owners, I set myself goals and one this year was to learn and engage more on LinkedIn.
LinkedIn is a social network for professionals. It’s like Facebook for your career but owned by a big tech company: Microsoft. Unlike most social networks, LinkedIn is a professional networking site, designed to help people make business connections, share their experiences and resumes, and find jobs.
For me, it is one avenue that I can get in front of my “ideal client” as they spend time there and secondly I wanted to use LinkedIn more than what I was doing so I understood it better to help my clients!
Like every platform, you firstly have to understand who your client is and know exactly where they “hang out” so to speak. If LinkedIn is not that platform, then you can skip straight to my tips.
WHY?
Because most of these tips can be used across every platform!
Top 10 Tips for Using LinkedIn
For those that want the info in a nut shell, here are my 10 ways to make you better on LinkedIn:
- Capture Stats – do this on day 1 and then check back regularly
- Consistency – show up and post regularly – start with once per day
- Header – create a header to promote your, your services / business
- Details – ensure your profile details are up to date
- Recommendations – provide recommendations and also ask for them
- Content – use from your blogs, social posts, about you / your business
- Connections – accept requests and connect with your ideal client
- Messaging – don’t worry about doing it with every connection
- Use your headline – make it interesting
- Customise your URL – remove the digits
For everyone else who would like to keep reading and find out more detailed information…read on!
1 Capture Current Stats
On your Dashboard take an initial screen capture so you can see where you originally started plus it gives you a reference to see how far you’ve come and whether what you are doing is working!
Here is a copy of mine as of the day of writing this blog post. It does fluctuate and I didn’t do a good job of saving the really great week stats!
2 Consistency
Aim to post content at a minimum of once per day (this is all I did and my engagement and search appearances increased ten fold!). I notice that other people that I follow post multiple times a day – if you have the content – go for it! But don’t feel pressured to do so.
3 LinkedIn Header
As well as your profile picture – be sure to utilise the space in the header as this is a great place to “advertise” – your business, an offer or something else. The recommendation for the header is 1584 x 396px and you can easily create this using Canva.
4 Update Details
Ensure all of your details are up to date and relevant eg: About | Experience | Education | Volunteer Experience | Licence and Certifications | Skills and Endorsements.
5 Recommendations
Be sure to ask co-workers, previous and current clients to provide you with a recommendation and also endorse some of those skills and qualifications. You also get to personalise the message to each person AND be sure to repay and provide recommendations to others.
6 Content
Content can be anything from your blog posts, sharing of other content, sharing recommendations or what you do – definitely do not limit yourself and it’s OK to show a bit of humour or your life / day in the life / background.
I have also found that using relevant hashtags in my posts can help be seen, occasionally I would start trending in these!
7 Connections
This is where knowing your ideal client enables you to then perform searches to find these people and connect with them. This then gets you in front of them and they can get to know you and your business through your content.
I would suggest only doing about 20 per day so you don’t get stopped as you then have to wait a full month before you can start searching again.
Trust me…I got caught out sending too many connections one month! Learnt my lesson!!!
8 Messaging
Something I personally am not a fan is the automatic messages or sales/ spammy messages some people think it’s ok to send straight away.
Some people say YES – send a message and connect with the person, but if you are sending lots of requests then this can be time consuming.
Personally, I prefer to send messages (and receive) to those connections who I am interested in connecting with…and to me it doesn’t come the MOMENT we’ve connected!
After completing all of the above and consistency posting once per day, I have found my engagement and followings have increased.
9 Headline
Make sure you make your headline STANDS OUT!
I utilise Helen Pritchard’s tagline of Helping XXX do XXX by XXX as opposed to just listing some key qualifications – this gives my ideal client a brief overview of me and my services instantly.
The headline is under your Intro area and I’ve heard a rumour that you can get more characters if you update the headline on an IPAD type device. I did try it but didn’t have any success, but know of others who have (so give it a go!).
10 Customise your URL
Also underneath your Intro/Profile area is your LinkedIn URL – many times people leave it as numbers eg: www.linkedin.com/jo-mckenzie-12345, however you have the ability to edit this so why not use it as an avenue to also advertise your business name!
Like any platform, I would not be concerned about how many or how little likes / followers / connections that you have. It is better to have only a few connections and high engagement then lots of connections…and no engagement!
After all…this is what social platforms are all about!
To recap, here are my 10 ways for using LinkedIn better:
- Capture Stats – do this on day 1 and then check back regularly
- Consistency – show up and post regularly – start with once per day
- Header – create a header to promote your, your services / business
- Details – ensure your profile details are up to date
- Recommendations – provide recommendations and also ask for them
- Content – use from your blogs, social posts, about you / your business
- Connections – accept requests and connect with your ideal client
- Messaging – don’t worry about doing it with every connection
- Use your headline – make it interesting
- Customise your URL – remove the digits
What are your tips for engaging on LinkedIn?
Until next time!
Jo
