LinkedIn - build your professional network
Correct me if I’m wrong, but there is no marketer who is not using social media in his work. This is a great space to share your content, reach customers, promote your brand or build strong relationships. In this article, I would like to focus on making a professional network in one of the social media tools – LinkedIn. I will tell you what should be concentrated on and how to do that.
LinkedIn is mostly known as a social networking site designed especially for the business community. It’s an easy place to share our work or to communicate with other people from the SEO industry. Members of the platform can join groups, research companies, look for jobs and network with fellows from their niche.
LinkedIn gives us professional, business opportunities and new ventures. You can also consider LinkedIn as a search engine for business professionals and check what professional background and experience other people from the industry have.
TAKE A LOOK AT SOME LINKEDIN STATISTICS!
LinkedIn is also a great tool to create personal branding. You can show yourself off from your best site. I would recommend focusing on the areas below.
General description
Consider it as your business card or professional brochure. Fill it out with your contact information and customize your public profile URL. By default, your LinkedIn profile URL consists of a string of random characters. Fortunately, you can have your own, special URL by going to Edit Public Profile -> Customize Your Public Profile URL. Choose the name you would like to displayed as your private URL.
And don’t forget about choosing the right profile picture. The truth is that everyone says you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, and then they go and do just that anyway. Do you know that your LinkedIn profile will get viewed 11 times more with the inclusion of a profile picture? Do not underestimate it! Source. Main information
Contact information
To customize your your public profile URL click EDIT
And simply customize your public profile URL
Enter your desired public LinkedIn profile URL name
Create a media profile – go beyond text alone.
LinkedIn is cool – it gives you the opportunity to create a multimedia resume. This is something you could never have on paper, so take advantage of it! Make your profile as awesome and professional as you are. Add photos, videos, PDFs, links, presentations, and even screenshots. You can include your certificates, diplomas and other documents that prove your achievements. If you make great videos, infographics or take nice photos, why don’t you show that off on your profile as well? You have a few options to choose from: add a link or upload an item straight from your computer.
Write an awesome summary.
Have you ever read a book jacket summary before you decided to read the whole book? Of course you have. We all like to get more information about something before we make the decision to get a bit more acquainted with it. Most people will only briefly glance at your profile. A killer summary gets people’s attention and keeps it for long enough for them to find out just how great you are at what you do. Be sure to include all of the most important information about yourself and get the attention you deserve from people in your industry. Don’t forget about media items! Use that option to make your profile interesting. Think about keywords which are related to your niche. Use them in your summary, but also in other places like:
skills, job titles and description or interests. Keywords help others find you on LinkedIn, but also on search engines too. What does this mean for you? Greater range of your content!
Build your social network
Social networking is time consuming and requires effort. LinkedIn makes it easier for you and offers you plenty of interesting groups that you can join. People with similar interests to yours, or people who work in the same or similar fields get together to discuss and exchange knowledge. Join them! Share your experience and opinions, ask for help, answer questions, meet new people and have fun! What I find very important - don’t spam on discussion groups or even on your wall. Sharing little valued content, particularly when you do it very often, may consequently get you removed from discussion groups or somebody even get deleted off people’s contacts. When you share a post, provide relevant information to your audience or group.
It’s strongly recommended from an SEO point of view to join groups. Linkedin search results depends from your network with friends, business contacts and groups you belong to. Be active in your groups and give mindful responses to the interesting discussions. LinkedIn allows us to join up to 50 groups – find the best math for you as it would boost your visibility.
Look for contacts
To attract more business opportunities, look for your friends on LinkedIn and people you may know and use them to build your professional network. When you send an invitation, remember that a personalized LinkedIn email request looks so much better than the default message. And what’s more, it shows that you have put some actual effort into making contact, and you are really interested in being in touch with that person.
My advice - before you send the invitation think! Do you know that person or is there any professional connection between you and him or her. You can send the invitation to someone you don’t know – but there must be a sensible reason. Before you ask for a connection, get information about the candidate. Be ready to explain why they should accept your invitation.
Don't send the default message - write a personalized and interesting one!
You can disagree with me but I don’t think having thousands of LinkedIn connections shows somebody in the glory light. On Twitter yes - billion of followers - make you a king. But on LinkedIn – I’m not sure that it looks professional. I believe “Less is more.” Being connected to many people who you don’t know or have anything in common with us is not cool at all. It’s better to have less, but engaged contacts, who really are your friends, colleagues or people from your industry. Having somebody as a your contact gives you warranty that he or she would see the content you’re sharing. Isn’t that what every marketer cares about? Another great LinkedIn option is the opportunity to check who’s viewed your profile. Check out analytics to see details about the people who have viewed your profile. When you have the free basic version you can see the five most recent viewers, and keywords that led them to you. If you would like to see more - upgrade to the premium version.
Give and ask for recommendations. Confirm and ask for your skills to be confirmed.
When you get a recommendation from an expert in your industry or a satisfied customer, you will be seen as a professional and reliable person. Take the initiative and give people whom you have worked with: your associates, co-workers or friends your recommendations. If you give recommendations to others – I believe they will repay you with the same. However, don’t be discouraged if not all of them pay you back.
Use the “Projects,” “Publications”, “Honors & Awards” and “Interests” sections.
This is a great place to show yourself off! I’m currently working on some projects which I will definitely add to this section. I believe it’s worth telling everyone about your accomplishments and other achievements that you couldn’t present in a regular resume. In this section, you can add multimedia
object as well. Let people know how interesting you are. Have you been a part of any student organization or worked as a volunteer? Or perhaps you have unique hobbies? That is so cool! Let the world know all about it! To add projects, publications etc. click EDIT
And here you can add additional information like project, certifications etc.
Do you have, for example our SEO DONE RIGHT certyficate? Why don't you show it off?
Don't forget about interest secion - you can find it at the bottom of the LinkedIn profile
An existing, but empty Linked profile is like a random website. No one knows it exists. Or perhaps it would be better comparing it to an un-optimized website—so of what point is its existence, if nobody ever sees it anyway? Use the great potential of LinkedIn to prove your professionalism to the world.
This professional community gives you an opportunity to share your experience and knowledge and build an awesome network! I strongly recommend it as your content marketing tool. Are you running a blog? Share your valuable content on discussion groups and present it on your wall. By making contacts with other professionals,you may get a proposition to join some interesting projects or find some great contacts. Consider LinkedIn as virtual place for marketing – use accurate keywords and make your profile visible.
My profile is currently not a hundred percent complete as you might notice; Yet, it is already rated as an "All Star". I also do believe it is already visible in search engines and LinkedIn searches. Thanks to that, I have received a few messages from people requesting professional advice. Also, I received an offer of employment via LinkedIN. At the moment, I am considering what changes I will see, upon the completion of my projects.
How are you at using LinkedIn as an inbound marketing tool? What new features do you find most useful? If you have a different point of view I would be happy to hear your opinion.