I have lost count of the number of times I’ve heard something like “well I’ve got a LinkedIn account but it doesn’t do anything for me”. Unfortunately, it’s almost always followed with something like “although I don’t actually do anything with it” which is when we start to look at how you make LinkedIn work harder for you!
LinkedIn is a living breathing thing and like all living and breathing things it needs fed. You need to keep using it so that the algorithm (the all-seeing auto-eye that keeps a constant watch on what you’re doing) sees you are an active user and rewards accordingly you with greater visibility, more suggested connections and higher billing in your connections’ timelines.
However, I understand many new users are a bit nervous as to what they can do without feeling too self-conscious or, worse, too salesy. With that in mind, here are 5 really easy things you can do.
5 things that will make LinkedIn work harder for you
1. Liking your connections’ posts. Very much an entry level activity but it’ll remind your connections you’re out there because LinkedIn will tell them you’ve liked their post.
2. Sharing your connections’ posts. One step further to liking and all you need to do to make it work harder for you is tag them in (@ plus their name) and say you found this interesting so thought some of your connections would.
3. Post news stories. You only need to post the headline and the link to the story (and again you can say you found this interesting so thought your network would and tag in the author and/or source for extra reach).
4. Start posting photos. People react better to posts with pictures so if you’re out and about with clients, colleagues or contacts, take a selfie and tag them in with a very quick line explaining where you are and what you’re doing.
5. Do something every day. One of the key criteria LinkedIn monitors is frequency of use so try and do something every day. Liking and sharing is fine but as the share function on a smartphone means you can make a post in seconds. As long as you’re receiving relevant e-bulletins and Google alerts covering the latest news from your practice area/target sectors (which you should be if you’re not!), this should be eminently doable on an almost daily basis too.
Once you’re in the swing of it, try and push yourself a little further each quarter. Give an opinion on a news item or add some commentary on the context around a news item. Or post a short blog as an update and invite your connections to comment on it.
If you’d like to discuss how to make LinkedIn work harder for you in more detail (or have any other questions about marketing or business development) please get in touch. Or you can download a version of Tenandahalf’s LinkedIn Tool Kit which has loads more tips.