There is no doubt that LinkedIn has gained a reputation as a valuable resource for career development. According to Business Insider, there are around 277 million people on LinkedIn, and a full 94% of recruiters use social media, in particular LinkedIn, to fill open positions.
These days, some of its well-meaning features, like endorsements, seem to straddle Facebook-esque likes, which don’t mean much. However, there are ways to leverage LinkedIn’s many cool offerings to build your personal brand and further your career.
Take your recommendations and endorsement seriously and write thoughtful networking emails.
Boosting your profile’s SEO:
To be seen, you must be included in search results. And to be included in search results, you must have keywords in your profile, and the more the better, according to Jorgen Sundberg in How to Build your Personal Brand on LinkedIn. Insert relevant keywords into your heading, job title and summary. Sundberg suggests keywords such as industry, location and company names and even people’s names.
“Bring it down to a micro level with versions of software and even post codes. See more at How to Make Google Love Your LinkedIn Profile,” he suggests.
Direct contact through groups
While not entirely a secret, this is a feature not everyone knows. You can usually connect and contact anyone directly through Groups on LinkedIn. If you have no way of contacting someone you would like to connect with, you can see what groups they are a member of, join and then make contact. Sundberg does note that users can turn this feature off, so it is not entirely foolproof, but it’s worth a shot.
Who should you really be connecting with?
While it’s true that the more connections you have, the more visibility you have, and the more people you can search for. But that isn’t the end all be all of LinkedIn.
“It’s worth identifying the so called ‘super connectors’ in your field and start connecting with them – if they have 1,000 relevant connections that will save you a lot of leg work,” says Sundberg. Who are super connectors? Check out Super Connectors on LinkedIn for more info. And don’t just connect with the bigwigs — remember the up and comers in the industry will be the CEOs down the road.
Standing out from the 277 million
You may just feel like a drop in the ocean that is LinkedIn, but you can stand out. Actively keeping up your profile, making connections and joining groups already puts you ahead of many users.
Take your recommendations and endorsement seriously and write thoughtful networking emails. Don’t just hand out endorsements to anyone who sends one to you. Make sure you really mean it.
In addition, participate in groups, establish your professional expertise and create a shareable experience.
According to A Step-By-Step Guide To Getting A Job Through LinkedIn, a shareable experience lets you provide updates that highlights your experience and shares valuable information with your network. Examples include at professional or career-related conferences and events, interesting meetings with key industry folks and so on. In addition, we live in a visual age, so presentations and photos are great material to share. Differentiate yourself professionally, and become someone people go to for information.