Linkedin is the world’s largest professional network, with over 830 million members. Yet, some people find Linkedin difficult to navigate because of its serious tone and formal content. Regardless, having an active Linkedin account can do wonders for your career as long as you follow the right approach by using these 7 tips for maximizing your Linkedin experience.
The Benefits of Using Linkedin
It’s extremely common for recruiters and hiring managers to check candidates’ Linkedin profiles after receiving their resumes. Recruiters check your Linkedin profile to better understand you as a person. So having a professional Linkedin profile can be an excellent way to give a great first impression to potential recruiters. For example, you could include recommendations and endorsements from past employers on your profile, which would give an extremely positive first impression of you.
You could also use Linkedin to better understand the company you’re applying to as well. You could check the company’s Linkedin page or see their individual manager’s accounts. Linkedin is also great for finding new employment opportunities and making new connections. Overall, Linkedin is excellent for presenting a positive image of your personal brand and learning about others.
Using These 7 Tips Will Give You the Best Possible Linkedin Experience.
1) Don’t Use Invitation Templates
It’s very common to send a welcome message to new connections on Linkedin. Doing that helps you introduce yourself to new connections and start a potentially beneficial conversion, too. In fact, your greeting message on Linkedin could be the starting point to a great and long-lasting professional relationship.
So, don’t ruin your chance of making an invaluable connection by using invitation templates. You’ll find plenty of pre-written invitation templates for Linkedin online, and you may have even received some. These messages give an extremely negative impression.
No one wants to know they weren’t even worth enough of your time that you’d write a small 50-word message for them. Instead, always write custom greeting messages to every person you add on Linkedin.
2) Use the Linkedin search filter
Linkedin has an excellent search engine that lets you look up people, companies, jobs, and posts by different criteria, like location, experience level, etc. You can use this feature to connect with the most relevant people and jobs for your industry.
For example, if you’re a photographer on the East Coast, you could search for event organizers on the East Coast and connect with them. You could form a professional relationship with an East Coast event organizer and eventually work as a photographer for them.
You can also use Linkedin’s search engine to find better employment opportunities. Linkedin lets you search for jobs according to different criteria, so you can fine-tune your search for the most relevant jobs for your qualifications and goals.
3) Respond to invites
Give people a response message when they add you on Linkedin. You could say something as simple as “ Hi Raul, I’m grateful that you chose to connect with me!”. Giving a response message like this is a great way to start a conversation and eventually build a professional relationship.
Sending response messages may not sound like a big deal, but it can go a long way to cement you as a positive and sociable person in other people’s minds. When you send such a response message to people, you’re telling them that you value their connection and that you’re open to speaking with them.
4) Build relationships
Linkedin has an excellent search engine that lets you look up people, companies, jobs, and posts by different criteria, like location, experience level, etc. You can use this feature to connect with the most relevant people and jobs for your industry.
For example, if you’re a photographer on the East Coast, you could search for event organizers on the East Coast and connect with them. You could form a professional relationship with an East Coast event organizer and eventually work as a photographer for them.
You can also use Linkedin’s search engine to find better employment opportunities. Linkedin lets you search for jobs according to different criteria, so you can fine-tune your search for the most relevant jobs for your qualifications and goals.
5) Build a content strategy
Don’t post randomly on Linkedin because Linkedin users don’t like randomness and chaos. Instead, build a content strategy in advance. Your content strategy will outline what type of content you’ll post at what time.
For example, you could post business updates on Monday to let everyone know how you’re doing. On Tuesdays, you could post an interesting quote to inspire your connections. On Wednesdays, you could post an interesting tip, and so on.
6) Use a third-party scheduler
Since Linkedin doesn’t have any internal scheduling tools, you may need an external one, like HootSuite or Buffer. The benefit of scheduling tools is they make it easier to follow your content schedule.
With a good third-party scheduler, you can make a set of posts for the week and instruct your scheduler when you want them posted. One downside of schedulers is that the Linkedin algorithm prefers posts directly made on your feed.
7) Join the right groups
There are different types of Linkedin groups, and you want to join and be active in multiple ones. Groups contain the most relevant people in your industry, area, and profession, so you should connect with them to network.
For example, if you’re a chemical engineer, you could join a chemical industry group to connect with others in your industry. You could also join a professional chemistry engineers group to specifically connect with other chemical engineers.
Ultimately, maximizing your Linkedin experience is all about building valuable connections, contacting relevant people, posting regularly and being part of the right groups.