To succeed in the corporate world, you need to network. But this importance is broken into sub-segments that aid employability and profile. Today, LinkedIn acts as the bridge between those two services.
Like every other social media platform, LinkedIn operates based on identity. Either this is the identity of a particular company, or it’s the identity of a LinkedIn member seeking employment, LinkedIn is ruled by identity. The platform is now home to over 756 million members.
These members are part of a growing community that wants to connect with business associates, clients, and co-workers. But this platform can serve more – boost your profile, create awareness for the user’s brand and help recruit the right people.
The extensive service offerings of LinkedIn could be beneficial professionally, personally, and organizationally. These are ways you can optimize LinkedIn for you.
1. Profile
The user’s profile is likely the most powerful part of LinkedIn. However, this profile must be completed. The internal search algorithm for LinkedIn only finds users with “complete” profiles. This means every complete profile has 20% more chances of being found by other users.
The user’s profile can also be set to a private mood. When set to private mode, other users will not find that profile and won’t be notified when the user goes through their profile. However, every user can create a public profile that can be seen by eternal search engines which are not necessarily registered to LinkedIn.
One of the best ways to monitor the strength of a profile which 9 out of 10 times determines how people perceive the profile is through the Profile Strength Bar. This monitors the user’s profile strength from Beginner to Intermediate to All-Stars. For most first-time users, they find this intimidating, but here are some profile hacks:
- Get a professional headshot with a charming smile looking smart.
- Most users overlook the importance of a banner image. Banner images add charisma to the profile and show the visitor that the user pays attention to details.
- Your bio allows for 120 characters; utilize this by stating the industry you belong to clearly.
- The user’s summary should humanize them. At this point, the user should talk about themselves and what they have to offer. Do not play into the temptation of using all 2000 characters. The user can include links to works they have done if they do not have a concise portfolio.
- The key to LinkedIn is specific. State your current position and the details of your responsibilities. Do not say plainly that you are a visual communicator but state what it entails. Be as detailed as possible.
These elements combined to make a well-optimized solid LinkedIn profile.
2. Build a community of professionals
The essence of LinkedIn is to build communities. Either you need a job or not, LinkedIn enables you to network with like minds. These are people and organizations in the user’s industry. The advantages of these communities are to help the user stay informed on trends and developments in that industry.
The general goal is to create as many connections as possible. Every user can invite others to connect and vice versa. The collection of these connections make up the users list known as “My Network.”
For every connection, the user gains access to that connection profile and their publicly available contacts who become the user’s “second-degree connections.” This expands the users’ reach and, by extension, opportunities.
(In most cases, the amount of connections a user has affects their visibility)
3. Get Active
Most times, the user stays dormant and does not interact. They are either searching for jobs or just want to see what is going on in their industry. In either situation, the user must interact with other users.
The LinkedIn messaging function allows for the users to have real-time conversations. Active users usually have a green dot beside their profile. LinkedIn makes these conversations even more flexible by providing Smart Replies. The Smart Replies function provides automated short replies that are contextually applicable. For example, while making a time-sensitive plan in a conversation, the Smart Reply function will suggest, “What time?”
Although to fully activate the other functions of the messaging platform, it is advisable the user switches to a Premium account. The LinkedIn Premium provides an InMail. InMail allows one user to send direct messages to another without a formal introduction or contact information.
4. Become a content creator
Creating engaging content specifically for a LinkedIn audience is not optional. LinkedIn is business-centric, so the critical factors for LinkedIn content must be informative, relevant, and valuable.
The content could be pictures, videos, articles, or links to other content relevant to your industry and connections. The user or organization could share experiences and opinions using built-in filters.
LinkedIn Publishing Platform also allows professional writers to publish full articles that can be seen and shared by other users.
The content features are extensive. LinkedIn also allows its user to through SlideShare deliver quality content like presentations and infographics.
A pro-tip is the use of hashtags. The hack to reaching even more connections is using the search bar to identify which of the relevant hashtags has more following. When you use the hashtag, the people following that particular hashtag find your work.
5. Run your organization
LinkedIn is the professional Mecca for businesses and could be a critical human resource tool. This function allows the organization to hire new employees. You can search for specific criteria like location, industry, language, non-profit interests, and even the required skills you need on your team.
Also, for organizations, LinkedIn could be the bridge between their brand and their potential customers; consumers, clients, suppliers, and new hires can engage with your company better if your content is well curated.
LinkedIn also helps the company narrow the kind of content they publish. Through the analytics page, you can can discover your page visitors and their content interests. When these visitors can relate to the posts, they are more likely to share the content.
The organization can also search out competitors, see what they are doing, how they are doing it, and know the necessary next steps.
Another pro-tip will be integrating the LinkedIn platform with other social media platforms the organization has. This will allow automatic uploads to other LinkedIn platforms the company has. This can be Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook.
Lastly, LinkedIn is a business platform, but this platform can also be used to create emotional connections with other users. The key to this is transparency because overselling your brand will be overkill.
