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.