Are you maximizing your profile?
Are you maximizing your Linkedin Profile? When you attend networking events, are you connecting with who you meet on LinkedIn in addition to taking their business card? How often do you post on Linkedin? Are you posting with a purpose? These are just a few questions you should ask yourself when thinking about your Linkedin strategy. The following steps will also support you in maximizing your efforts on Linkedin.
1.) Get your custom URL. This is great to place on marketing materials, your email signature, capability statements and or your resume. Use your name so that you are easy to find when your audience is searching for you.
2.) Use a professional headshot for your profile picture. If you have a business page, use your company logo. According to LinkedIn, company pages with logos get six times more traffic.
3.) Showcase events, information, and tools that support the story of your business while providing valuable resources to your clients. The information that you share should connect with the messaging of your personal/professional brand.
4.) Use keywords that describe your experience and skills so that those searching for you via Sales Navigator or Recruiter can easily find you. This will also make it easier for those looking to network within your industry to find you. In addition to keywords, select at least six skills that you are good at so that your connections can endorse you to support the fact that you are a subject matter expert in the area.
5.) If you have endorsements, you can relocate them to the top portion of your page. This is a great way to showcase the fact that you are supported as a subject matter expert. Also, don’t forget to list your volunteer experience. This helps others get to know you and what you are passionate about.
6.) Utilize comments as an opportunity to be conversational and offer genuine insight as a subject matter expert. You have valuable insight to share. Don’t be afraid to share it.
7.) Find groups that are relevant to your industry or offering. You can utilize tools such as The Linkedin Group Directory and the Discover Page to find groups that align with your target audience.
8.) When joining groups, think about quality over quantity. You will want to evaluate how active the group is, the type of content being discussed, as well as if the group’s members could be a great extension of your network.
9.) If you are going to use InMail Ads on Linkedin, remember that messages with 500 characters or less have a higher CTR than longer messages. The time that you have to capture your audience’s attention is brief. Therefore, get to the point of the problem that you solve fast.
10.) Maximize your audience expansion when using ads. This advertising tool is built in the Linkedin campaign builder and it targets LinkedIn ads to the specific groups based on your selection. For example, If you target people with a certain skill, Audience Expansion might also show your ad to people who have similar skills. Therefore, be specific when developing your ad strategy.
11.) When you pay for an ad or “sponsored content”, you can use the embed feature to add larger images at 1200 x 627 pixels images which have a higher click-through-rate (CTR) than sponsored content with smaller images.
12.) Post daily and get visual. Posts that include pictures and or video have higher engagement. Those featuring YouTube videos also have a higher rate of being shared.
Networking should be maximized online and offline if you are trying to solidify your presence as a subject matter expert and connect with those in your industry to grow your brand. Using Linkedin to build and leverage your network is a valuable strategy that when done consistently, can yield positive results.