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In an earlier article I gave you 10 tips to boost your LinkedIn profile.
I sure hope this has helped you in finding a new career opportunity or to generate more business with your updated LinkedIn profile.
People often ask me what the most important sections are to improve your visibility in an easy way. First, update your profile picture. Second, create a headline that states clearly what you do and how you help. Third, make sure people know how to contact you by adding your details in the contact info section and the summary section.
In addition to the 10 tips, I have 3 advanced tips to boost your LinkedIn Profile:
1. Personalize your invitation to connect
You have probably seen the dull standard email saying:
Hi Freek, I’d like to join your LinkedIn network.
It’s a missed opportunity to network! Tell the other something more about yourself, what you do and how you help. The person you’re inviting wants to know “What is in it for me?”. You can even add a CTO (Call to action) by inviting them to sign up for your newsletter. You can also refer to an event were you have met.
Choose who you want to connect with. Ask yourself if this connection is valuable to your network? It’s better to have 100-200 active connections who actually generate business than 10.000 who contribute nothing. Do this as well while sending invitations to connect with your smartphone. See the images below for step-by-step instructions. Currently, this only seems to work if your language settings in LinkedIn are English.
2. Start a Blog
In LinkedIn this is called a ‘Post’ and is published in the application called ‘Pulse’. It is currently only available if your language settings are English.
A post is an article and an opportunity to show your expertise in your field. It should contain something of value to your readers. It should be an article that is both informative and inviting for readers to participate in a discussion. It is very convenient to start a Blog post in LinkedIn when you don’t have a personal website containing a blog. An advantage to post in LinkedIn is that all your connections are notified as soon as you have published a new post.
3. Be active & encourage your employees to be active on LinkedIn
In LinkedIn you can share a status update. This is very similar to a post on Facebook. Keep it short and informative. It shows your engagement on LinkedIn. If you have a lot information (& images) to share, I suggest that you write a post (Blog) in Pulse.
Why? I can imagine that your manager is reluctant to let you spend time on LinkedIn. A recent study shows that an average user spends 17 minutes a month(!) on LinkedIn. This can easily be done during an after lunch dip.
Being active on LinkedIn helps to increase your companies’ visibility on the web. It also shows that the company has employees who are engaged with their work. Potential clients want to know who they are doing business with and how these specialists can help them with their project.
But be aware what you post! Check corporate guidelines on what to post and what not. Even though you are enthusiastic about a new project, it might be sensitive information for the competition and it can be unwise to talk about it in a post, status update or even in your Headline. Better check with your manager or the legal department of your company.
Do you have any questions on how to use LinkedIn? Just enter them in the comment field below and I will answer them as soon as possible. You are most welcome to share your tips and tricks on how to use LinkedIn successfully in the comment box as well!
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