How to improve your personal brand on LinkedIn

LinkedIn is one of the best social media platforms for business networking and sales. As a Utah-based social media marketing agency, we’re focused on helping businesses elevate their brands to achieve their goals. Below are practical tips you can use to strengthen your personal brand on LinkedIn. By putting them to work for you, you can create more opportunities for yourself and gain the momentum you need. Before we dive into these tips, let’s go over what LinkedIn is for those unfamiliar with the platform.

What is LinkedIn?

LinkedIn is like Facebook for your career! It is a social media platform that is used for professionals to network, find jobs, and access knowledge. It is similar to a networking event where you meet other professionals, share a little about what you do and exchange business information– but it’s done virtually.

On the platform, you ‘connect’ with others like you would ‘friend’ someone on Facebook. You have a profile of your business history, skills, and achievements made public for others to see. There is a newsfeed showing recent posts from others. LinkedIn will tailor current job listings based off of information you have given them about yourself.

Benefits of growing your personal brand on LinkedIn

In these modern times, networking through LinkedIn is the fastest, most effective way to find new opportunities. There are so many great reasons to be a part of the LinkedIn community! Here are several reasons why:

• Recruiting: According to LinkedIn, 93% of recruiters use LinkedIn to find and recruit new employees. If a recruiter were to Google search your name, they would find your LinkedIn profile that summarizes who you are and if you would be a good candidate for the job. 

• Show your expertise: You will gain more trust and credibility as a professional with those you connect with on LinkedIn when they see your achievements and other connections. The platform has a feature that allows for others to endorse or recommend you based off of your skills and past work. These endorsements can be viewed by anyone that views your profile. 

• Research Tool: Whether you are a recruiter or are looking for a job, you can use the search features to learn more about specific jobs. You can also research information on people or businesses to prepare you for job interviews. The platform can be used to follow specific companies that you are interested in working for. You can learn more about who works for these companies to help you in networking with those circles of professionals. 

• Job Listings: You can find job listings on LinkedIn that you won’t find in more traditional settings. You can immediately apply for jobs through LinkedIn, save listings or let recruiters know that you are interested in what they have to offer. 

• Learning Tool: Join groups of like-minded professionals with similar skills and interests. These groups give you the opportunity to network, and learn and be a part of discussions related to your industry. 

How to improve your personal brand on LinkedIn

It is crucial to ensure your LinkedIn profile is creating a strong online brand for yourself. There are several things to keep in mind to ensure you are creating a strong profile:

Update your ‘About’ section

The ‘About’ section is your best opportunity to sell yourself as a professional. It is the one place on the platform where you are completely free to explain who you are in your own words. People typically use the ‘About’ section as a place to highlight their biggest achievements, show your personality, promote certain skills, and explain their career choices. Ensure that this stays up-to-date so that others can learn who you are.

Comment on the posts of others to increase visibility

Having an updated profile or liking others posts on LinkedIn is not enough to be seen. You need to be an engaged and active user. Comment on others posts to gain the attention of the author or the post, the author’s connections and others. Remember that this is a professional social networking platform. Ensure that your comments are professional, meaningful, respectful, relevant to your field of expertise, short and not self-promoting.

Endorse others for their skills

Make friends by being a friend first! Have you personally seen the work and skills that some of your connections say they can do? Go to the LinkedIn profiles of those connections, click on ‘Skills and endorsements’ and find the listed skill you want to endorse. By endorsing others’ skills, you are building the credibility of their profile and your name and picture will be displayed on this section of their profile.

Leave recommendations for others

You can give and receive written recommendations from your connections. When someone writes a recommendation, you will be notified to read and approve or reject the recommendation before it is made public on your profile. LinkedIn users can request for recommendations from anyone. You can edit or remove your recommendations for others at any time. If you later change your mind about a recommendation you have left, you can revise it or delete it.

Respond to comments/direct messages

Staying on top of conversations on LinkedIn shows others that you are organized and attentive. Check your LinkedIn inbox several times a day. If your inbox gets cluttered, you could miss out on important messages from others. Ensure that you have a reminder system set up to respond to messages like “follow up with me in a week”.

Participate in comment threads relevant to your personal brand

LinkedIn recommends that you don’t post your own content more than once a day. If you do post more than that, the platform will hide your post for most others to see because it’s giving others the opportunity to share their content.

However, commenting on LinkedIn is never limited and it gives you more exposure. On other social media platforms, your comments under the author’s posts will only be seen by those that follow the author. LinkedIn works differently: when you comment on LinkedIn, not only does your comment appear and notify the author or the post, but the platform will take your comment and put it into the feed of your network.

LinkedIn is a remarkable tool to connect with other professionals and show your expertise. Do you have more questions about how to improve your brand on LinkedIn? Let us know by filling out the form below!  

Whether you’re a business owner in Arizona or Utah, we’re to help you achieve your marketing goals. We’re here for you every step of the way.

3 ways to get more people to your LinkedIn profile and build your personal brand

LinkedIn can be one of the best places to build your personal brand due to how easy it is to engage with others and share information. You can quickly post your latest professional updates and thoughts on business. It can be anything from sharing links to videos to infographics.

With time, you can promote your personal brand and become a subject matter authority. You’ll expand your reach and influence as long as you’re providing value for others. Below are three quick tips that will help you build your personal brand on the world’s most popular business platform:

1. Post often: It’s important to regularly share content on LinkedIn. Don’t be afraid to contribute to trending hashtag conversations by creating your own posts. Here are some ideas of post content you can share:

   1. Favorite quotes from a business book you’re reading

   2. Recent business wins like a new partnership or achieving a revenue goal

   3. A picture of a hobby you love to give people a better idea of who you are

   4. A failure you experienced and what you’re learning from it

   The four ideas above are just suggestions of what you can share as a post on LinkedIn. Feel free to test out which types of posts gain the most traction for your personal brand. It’ll take some time to get meaningful data so be patient. Be sure to include relevant hashtags in your posts since hashtags are an effective way for people to find specific types of content.

2. Comment on the posts of others: This is one of the best ways to connect with others in the LinkedIn community and show that you care. By commenting on the posts of others, you can quickly figure out who cares about what you have to say. You can also find new thought leaders who help you achieve your personal goals and business goals. Commenting regularly on the posts of others also attracts more people to your LinkedIn profile which also helps you increase your presence on LinkedIn.

   Make it a goal to comment on at least 30 posts each week. This should be the bare minimum. If you’re wanting to actual acquire new sales leads and gain real visibility, multiply your efforts by three or four. It takes time to put in the work. These interactions are more effective than cold emails and cold phone calls because people who post on LinkedIn want the engagement.

   Here are a few tips to keep in mind when you comment on the posts of others:

   1. Don’t be spammy. Don’t be that person who just leaves their contact information everywhere hoping someone will bite. Focus on the individual’s post and how you can add to the conversation.

   2. Provide genuine responses. Resist the urge to only leave an emoji. Try to comment with at least 3-5 words. It’ll cause you to think more about what you want to say and it shows that you took the time to share your thoughts.

   3. If they’re interested hearing more about what you have to say, they will reply or send you a direct message.

3. Follow-up and make real connections: Despite the issue of spammers on LinkedIn, there’s also the real opportunity to get to know actual people. If someone asks you for your contact information, respond and connect! If another person on LinkedIn messages you and wants to go out to lunch, make it happen! Internet networking is one thing but the level of connections that happen in-person tend to be more meaningful.

Now that you have these tips, put them to work for you! Consistent work over time on LinkedIn will help you generate more sales opportunities and get more people to know about your personal. Do you have any questions about growing your LinkedIn presence? Let us know in the contact form below.

What should you be sharing and posting on your personal LinkedIn feed?

LinkedIn is one of the best platforms for organic engagement and building your personal brand. The professional networking platform makes it easy for you to share content you’ve created and engage with other posts you’ve found value in. It’s also simple to talk to other people and engage with their content quickly.

While that sounds great and all, if you don’t know how to get the ball rolling and gain momentum on LinkedIn, it can be frustrating. This blog post is designed to help you know what type of mindset you should have on LinkedIn and how to provide value for your community.

How do I know what I should be sharing on LinkedIn?

This is a common question we receive nearly on a weekly basis. Knowing what to share on LinkedIn can feel overwhelming if you don’t know where to start. Here’s the question you need to ask yourself which will be what guides you in creating your content: Which problems are people paying my business to solve?

As long as you’re focused on helping your target audience solve the problems you’re best at solving, you’re on the right track. Here are a few examples of problems people are dealing with and the businesses positioned to help them solve those problems:

• You’re having a hard time filing business taxes -> Tax accounting firm

• You’re having a tough time losing weight -> Nutritionist

• You need help driving traffic to your website -> SEO agency

For just about every struggle you could possibly have, there’s a business somewhere out there providing a solution. By sharing freely sharing your knowledge and expertise, you help potential customers and clients understand how you can best help them. You’ll be able to build your brand and increase trust between you and the people who follow you by focusing on them and their needs.

Start by creating a list of questions you consistently receive

You’ve already identified the major problems you help people solve. How do you break up that main issue into multiple piece of content? One approach you can take is to create your first 10 posts by answering the top 10 most common questions you’re asked. Here are a handful of examples of questions you might be receiving depending on the business you’re in:

• Auto repair shop:

  • How long does it take to repair a broken windshield?

  • What are some maintenance tips I can follow to keep my car in great shape?

  • How often should I change my car’s oil?

• Financial advisor

  • What are my retirement plan options if I’m self-employed?

  • Should I create a trust for my children?

  • Do you recommend investing in mutual funds?

• Real estate agent

  • What are the pros and cons of building a new house?

  • Is refinancing my home a good thing or a bad thing?

  • How do I get pre-approved for a mortgage?

• SEO agency:

  • How often should I update my website?

  • Where can I find keywords to target?

  • Is $500/month enough ad spend to get more business?

Take the questions you receive and address them 1-2 times a week at the minimum. You’ll position yourself as an expert by proving to be a reliable resource.

Now that we’ve covered the mindset you need to have and topics to post about, let’s talk about a few tactical things you need to do starting with hashtags.

Put hashtags to work for you

Hashtags are a powerful tool you can use in LinkedIn. You can easily search for trending content via hashtags on LinkedIn which will help you find out what people are talking about in your industry. For example, we can easily stay up to date with the latest trending posts about social media marketing with #socialmediamarketing on LinkedIn. The same goes for relevant hashtags in any industry you might be in from financial planning to web development.

Be sure to add at least 2-3 hashtags whenever you post on LinkedIn. It’ll help you expand your reach and also help people in need of your services/products easily find your content. Always stick to using hashtags that are directly related to your post and the industry.

Reply to comments

It takes more effort to comment on a LinkedIn than it does to react to a post. People who take time out to comment on what you’ve shared are showing that they care and are interested in what you have to say. Always respond to the comments you receive. It’s proof that you’re listening and are grateful for their willingness to engage with you on LinkedIn. The more conversations that happen on your post, the more your post will be seen by people outside of your immediate network which is a great thing!

Engage with other people’s posts

We can’t stress enough times the importance of being social on social media. Spend time engaging with people’s posts on LinkedIn. Don’t post and expect other people to like and comment on your posts if you’re not doing the same. Below are a few goals you can follow weekly or even daily depending on what you are willing to do and have time for:

• Comment on 5 posts with hashtags directly related to the industry you’re in

• Give 1 recommendation to someone you’ve managed or reported to

• Comment on 3 posts from people who are 1st-degree connections on LinkedIn

You can take the goals listed above and modify them according your needs. The key with getting more engagement on your posts is consistency in your engagement with the posts of others on LinkedIn.

Follow these tips every week for at least 5 weeks. You’ll see a noticeable increase in overall engagement as well as an increase in the number of people checking out your LinkedIn profile to learn more about you. It’ll time to build some momentum so don’t give up.

Do you have any questions about building your personal brand on LinkedIn? Let us know in the comments below!