Making The Most From Linkedin

LinkedIn is a social network that focuses on professional networking and career development. It’s somewhere you can display your work history, gain endorsements from colleagues, search for jobs, as well as enhance your professional reputation by posting updates and interacting with other people.

It’s also a great place to find relevant content whether current or even historical. You can interact with people across the Globe, research companies, join relevant groups who can provide appropriate intelligence and potentially offer insights.  It is a platform where you can start discussions, advertise, promote yourself and your business as well as type questionnaires to gain feedback, or simply treat it as somewhere you can just ask for help.

Through sharing articles or insights, yourself you can begin to establish yourself as a knowledgeable professional in your field and demonstrate that you are a reputable person and could be considered as a skilled expert.

SOME RECENT STATS (Source: findstack.com)

• LinkedIn has over 690+ million members

·         Almost 45% of members are also monthly active

·         LinkedIn is the most widely used social media platform among the Fortune 500.

·         Of the approximately 2 billion millennials worldwide, 87 million are on LinkedIn

·         57% of LinkedIn users come to the platform from their smartphones.

·         LinkedIn profiles with a photo get 21x more visitors and 36x more messages

·         97% of B2B marketers use LinkedIn

·         LinkedIn generates 3x more conversions than Twitter & Facebook

·         LinkedIn has 15x more content impressions than job ads

Companies invest a lot of resource and money into building their brand and looking to gain awareness and engagement.  They seek to ensure people know exactly who they are, what they sell and where they wish to be in the market, as well as standing out from their competition and basically getting noticed!  If you think of your LinkedIn information in the same way and follow a similar process in terms of creating a standout brand with all the key information that will gain attraction and ultimately highlight your capabilities, whether you’re searching for a new position, or looking to promote yourself as being proficient in your field.

MAKE THE MOST OUT OF YOUR LINKEDIN PROFILE

As with any social media platform it is good to consider what your profile picture will be, and the impression it will give of you – of course it’s about showing who you are, but this is a professional platform so a photo from a nightclub or a hen night isn’t the best way forward.

You can also add a background photo – this can be an area to showcase what inspires you, the environment you work in or even something you have produced to promote your creativity.

Make your summary inspiring – if you really are seeking to get noticed then tell your story here, this is where you can personally bring to life your work experience and skill set, as well as your ambitions and ideas for the future.

Use a short sharp list of your relevant skills, so they can be seen at a quick glance. This will really help substantiate the information in your summary and can immediately show some of the business systems you have experience using and key details that businesses or people maybe interested in exploring further.

LinkedIn is a great tool to keep in touch with ex colleagues, as well as your current ones.  Both of which are your “cheer leaders” in terms of getting endorsements for your experience. It works both ways endorsing your connections skills is a way to recognise their professional abilities you have physically seen them demonstrate and likewise they can do the same for you.  Endorsing your colleagues can also help you to maintain strong connections with the people in your network.

You can grow your network as much as you wish to, you can search for people in similar industries and ask to connect with them, as well as relatable industry groups.

Sharing information and media collateral adds an extra dimension to your profile.  Sharing material and content helps others see your commitment and what you are interested in, and you can soon become a go to content sharer.

USING LINKEDIN EFFECTIVELY TO GET A JOB

Make sure you regularly update your profile and be thorough about your current skills, personal goals, and objectives.  It’s good to highlight your most recent experience too.  Most of all be authentic, be you!  After all you want to work somewhere where you not only enjoy the job but know that your work ethic, personally and skill set truly fit.

Update your headline. Your photo, name, and headline are the only items people see when they do a search. Make sure you constantly review your headline and that you feel confident it matches who you are and where you wish to be.  E.g., “Marketing Coordinator who loves to take a brief and turn it into something exception” would stand out far more than “Marketing Coordinator with 3 years’ experience”.

If your current employer is aware, you are seeking a new opportunity, or if you are currently unemployed, LinkedIn now have the facility to add a frame to your profile photo indicating you are “OPEN TO WORK”, making it far easier for potential recruiters to find you.

If you’d prefer not to use the frame you can add something in your profile, text box or evening the #opentowork.

You can also create a job alert as well as searching all the specific companies you would like to work for as they will often advertise all their current roles, both nationally and internationally.  You can also save the jobs you are interested in to review later.

ADDITIONAL BENEFITS OF USING LINKEDIN

Things you maybe less aware of you can get for a fee from LinkedIn are listed above – so for instance there are many courses you can do, with a certificate at the end to enhance your skill set.  There is a free trial available should you wish to get an understand of what is on offer.  You can also get an idea of the salary you could be earning for a specific role, in a specific are or even country.

IN SUMMARY

Your LinkedIn profile is your professional story and represents the type of work, work ethic, and passion you have for what you do and would like to do.  Spend a fair amount of time ensuring it’s the best it possibly can be, as well as taking a good look around at what else is available to you to help with either your personal career or ways in which you could seek and find key pieces of information that will enhance your work and life balance.

Remember it’s a great research tool, for company information, questionnaires and just asking something you could do with advice on.  It’s not just for the country you’re living in either, you can look at what the rest of the world is up to in the Jobs market and gain great insights from around the Globe should you wish to do so.

Fundamentally it’s your profile, your story, your work history, so consider the impression you want to send out into the business world.

Don’t leave it any longer to log back into your LinkedIn account and make it work better for you.  You’re the creator of your own brand.