KAREN ALBERT
Top 2 Ways Entrepreneurs Should Leverage LinkedIn Karen Albert “To me LinkedIn is useless!” is a statement I hear quite often by entrepreneurs and small business owners when I start to discuss the importance of being active on LinkedIn. A statement founded on the fact that many LinkedIn users don’t know what to do with all the LinkedIn connection requests they receive and/or why they should even be on LinkedIn since they are not looking for employment.
Here are a few things you can do to optimize your page and increase your position in LinkedIn search results: 1. Name and Headline. Ensure your name and headline are populated with very descriptive keywords that will help the search engine, as well as LinkedIn users, understand what it is you do, who you do it for and where you do it (i.e. your geographical area if that is relevant to your service)
My response to this statement is this; over 65 million professionals use LinkedIn to cultivate their careers and businesses and unlike other social networks in which you might become “friends” with anyone and everyone, LinkedIn is about building strategic relationships. Thus, the number of connections is less important than the type of connections. In fact, LinkedIn stops showing your actual number of connections once you have 500 because it’s about quality, not quantity.
2. Your About Section. Ensure your About section is full of the keywords that best describe your service(s) and also clarifies who your services are best suited for (i.e. “The clients I typically work with are..”). Make it less about you (don’t just copy/paste your bio or resume) but rather help the users understand who you specialize working with and how it will benefit them.
Here are the top 2 ways Entrepreneurs user should utilize LinkedIn and why…
1. BE FOUND BY THE RIGHT PEOPLE... LinkedIn is a search engine just like Google except
that the search results LinkedIn produces is limited to that which is contained within LinkedIn. In fact, users search more on LinkedIn than any other social media platform. So, in order to take advantage of this, your LinkedIn contact page needs to be fully optimized.
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3. Skills and Endorsements. Create a concise list of Skills/ Endorsements. If you have skills listed that are not that relevant to your actual profession, get rid of them. For example, if you are a Real Estate professional and you list skills such as Sales-force or Microsoft Word your reducing the chance of your LinkedIn profile appearing in search results from your desired LinkedIn user/ community. Skills should be relevant to your profession. 4. Recommendations. Not only is it important for your LinkedIn profile to be fully optimized for search engine results, it’s also important for your LinkedIn profile to communicate to users viewing your profile that you are a seasoned LinkedIn user and professional. Having received recommendations, and given recommendations helps with both. Note: feel free to review my LinkedIn profile as a best practice example: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ socialmediawithkarenlizalbert/
