Fortune Magazine acknowledge role of LinkedIn

I just completed some interesting training for a large company who are trying to get to grips with LinkedIn. I found that while most of the team were all signed up to the platform no one was actually “posting” anything on it!

For anyone who is thinking about jumping into LinkedIn or who is thinking about using it in a more serious way I have a few simple tips:

Your Objective?

Try to figure out what you want to achieve from the platform – this will change as you explore some of the features but it will help you to get going initially.

Jump in, it’s here to stay

This platform isn’t going away – get in there as quick as possible and establish yourself. The platform is quickly becoming the business “social media” platform with huge growth year on year.

All the big companies are represented on it and you really don’t want to be left out of the party!

Make sure you have your profile fully up to date and use a professional photo of yourself. (Check your “profile completeness” score on your profile page). Go beyond just signing up!

Be patient – people are listening

At first you make thing that no one is listening to your comments and updates – you would be surprised! Even when you post your name and your company are constantly coming to the attention of your connections and group members.

Learn how to be sticky

With your posts put some time and attention into your “headlines” – there is a lot of content being posted on the platform so try extra hard to grab the readers attention quickly with strong headlines.

Groups are the Power Tool

For me groups are where the main action is from the point of view of getting your “voice” and message heard. You will be able to build your own connections naturally over time but joining groups is an easy way of “turbo charging” your audience – simply, join groups and you will have access to a lot more people. Of course you need to find the right ones that are relevant to your business.

Use your raw material (create if necessary)

When posting you should use raw material, which you have already created – links to articles or news items on your website etc. If you need to create new material consider starting a blog and create articles of interest from here. In this way you can “recycle” the articles at a later date. By posting links to your blog or other material this has the added bonus of improving optimisation.

Find your voice

I would recommend not getting too caught up with formality on the platform. It is “social” media and you will find out after time that lighter, more informal posts tend to receive a better response than heavier material. The most important thing is that you are “yourself”.

Grab opportunities to connect

If you are going to maximise the benefit of LinkedIn it is important that you are proactive about building connections. If you are going to spend time posting you may as well do it to a larger audience.

Make recommendations

Recommendations are very powerful – where else online can you record someone’s positive feedback about you? These tend to occur in a reciprocal way so take the first step and start recommending people who you respect and can vouch for.

Not only will you recruit a “friend for life”  but if the feeling is mutual you will probably gather a very strong recommendation for your own profile page for all to see. Make sure you are honest and don’t exaggerate, this is too easily seen through – keep it honest and believable.

Always thank

When people go to the bother of connecting with you make sure you acknowledge it by thanking them. When someone comments on your posts make sure you acknowledge it.

Thanks for reading!

Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion