LinkedIn Tips for You, the Entrepreneur
Business owners are asking us how to make better use of LinkedIn. Many people think it is only for job seekers or to connect with people you already know or a way to show off what you have accomplished. While all of these are potential uses for LinkedIn, it’s much more than that. LinkedIn is a professional 24/7 networking event. Sure, many people are not paying attention and many people are looking to hand out as many business cards as possible, but if you spend enough time you can make LinkedIn work for you. Here is a list of 5 LinkedIn tips to help you make LinkedIn a valuable resource in your networking toolkit.
1) Create a unique LinkedIn URL
Your default LinkedIn URL is generic. Take advantage of this URL by making it unique to you or your branding (i.e. linkedin.com/in/yourname). This makes it easier to share your LinkedIn profile and it gives your profile a more clean, professional appearance. It is amazing how many people don’t take advantage of this and that is why we have this idea at the top of the LinkedIn Tips list.
2) Engage more (one of the most important LinkedIn tips)
Engaging on LinkedIn is a simple task that goes a long way. Two ways to engage is replying to group messages and replying to other people’s status updates (and LinkedIn articles). People appreciate it when you take the time to read and comment on what they post. And by doing this, more people will find you (when an individual likes or replies to something you liked or commented on, they will see you there and may say “who is this person…let me check out their profile.”). And when you post something, it may be the beginning of a conversation that leads to something. Remember, staying silent on LinkedIn helps no one.
3) Update your contact information
Your contact information may be missing the URL of your company website or your personal blog. Or it may have the wrong email address or an old phone number. Yes, we see this all a lot. This is a major step to generating traffic on your website or blog. Just know that if the contact information is not correct, you are missing out on easy connections.
4) Connect your Twitter profile
Twitter is a better place to post quick updates. This is a way to let your LinkedIn following know you are on Twitter and helps you to connect with them on Twitter, a more cocktail hour, friendly setting.
5) Share other people’s content (or other sources)
This can range from an article you like on a major website or it can be from someone you know that is doing good work—I would lean to that as it is more influential to share something from a small business. This will allow for more status updates not centered around you and your business. And as a by-product, it leads to clicks to your profile and then your website.
And in the spirit of sharing other people’s content, check out this article from Cleverism titled, “What Women Need to Include in Their LinkedIn Profile to Increase Visibility.”
Focus on these 5 LinkedIn tips and you will see LinkedIn become more useful in your day to day social media networking strategy.
Image of LinkedIn was taken by Esther Vargas under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license