By Beth Monicatti-Blank
LinkedIn is the world’s largest professional network with 756 million members in more than 200 countries and territories worldwide. It is an online tool for you or your business to show the world your professional persona, and has the ability to expand your awareness, credibility, and brand.
The Microsoft-owned social media company wants you to succeed — follow their suggestions for improving your profile and business pages. But here’s some additional advice on succeeding:
Why Use LinkedIn?
- Thought Leadership/Credibility
- Attracting Business
- Recruiting
- Search Visibility
- Groups
Thought Leadership and Credibility
Your personal LinkedIn page needs to be created and updated with careful consideration.
Add a profile picture—make sure the photo looks professional. It doesn’t have to be taken by a professional photographer, but a selfie inside your car won’t suffice.
Update all the basic information. Details like your industry and contact information are key.
Add work experience, your expertise, education, training, volunteering — anything that tells your story. This is where you build your brand and highlight your accomplishments.Ask others for skill endorsements and recommendations that add to your worth.LinkedIn is a business resource. Make sure to always engage with professional etiquette when using the platform. It’s important to maintain a good reputation. Personal opinions, including politics, religion, and rumors should not be shared.
Start Making Your Connections!
You can invite anyone to connect. At a networking event? Consider reaching out to all your new contacts through LinkedIn. The online platform will always give you reminders and suggestions to find additional connections. Put yourself out there and find meaningful connections to increase visibility.
Attracting Business
It’s time to create your business page. Business pages with complete information get 30% more weekly views.
Add your logo and a cover image that gives life and personality to your page. Your cover image could be a photo of your team, mission statement, anything that gives clarity to your company brand or story.
Include your company description, specialties, industry, website and more. The more details you include, the more people will find and connect with your company. Use relevant terms and phrases that describe your organization’s mission and purpose (LinkedIn members can search by keywords).
Grow your business page by inviting your personal connections to follow your business page.
Posting content to your business page is necessary to keep engaging, educating and marketing to your potential customers. Use graphics (posts with graphics lead to higher engagement), as well as videos, slide presentations, infographics, published articles, company news, team and staff testimonials, job postings, and trends. Consult your team to discuss possible content to use on your page. Be careful not to use only sales-related information. Consider creating a monthly calendar for your LinkedIn content.
Make sure you add the LinkedIn follow link to your website. It gives potential customers more education about you and your manufactured housing operation, as well as other ways to connect. Also, consider adding a link to your business page in your email signature.
Recruiting
Looking to hire your next company all-star on LinkedIn? Advanced search filters and keyword searches can make recruiting easier. You can refine your candidate search with 40+ filters, including location, job titles, companies, industries and more. Another great function is filtering for candidates that are “more likely to respond,” “open to work,” or have engaged with your company brand — all based on LinkedIn member signals. Through their LinkedIn profiles you can also assess candidates’ skill proficiency and be confident in their skills before reaching out.
If you have open opportunities at your workplace, make sure they are always posted to your business page.
Search Visibility
LinkedIn company and personal pages show up very high in online searches. Google shows previews of up to 156 characters of your profile, so make sure your business page description leads with powerful, keyword-rich sentences.
Groups
LinkedIn members can create or join groups to share and discuss industry topics. Consider how joining an industry or alumni group can help further your knowledge, expand your professional network and increase your credibility! To find groups, use the search bar on top of your profile page, pr search using industry terminology and find the search references to groups. You can also tell your connections what groups you recommend.
Consider the group descriptions, as well as connections from your network who are already members, to determine which groups are the best fit for you.
In the world of LinkedIn, it’s as much about what you know as who you know.
