LinkedIn: Are You Doing It Right?

Pegged as the Facebook of the business world, LinkedIn is the social media channel that you may take the least notice of, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be using it.

Communication has transformed entirely over the past decade, both in and out of business. Today’s recruiters, businesses and employees have shifted towards the online sphere in their search for contemporaries and business opportunities, and LinkedIn is one of the most powerful of these communities in existence. Are you making the most of it?

LinkedIn reported a huge 364 million members as of the first quarter of 2015. To you as a business, that’s 364 million potential employees, customers and brand ambassadors; can you afford to be missing out?

Unfortunately, a huge chunk of the LinkedIn community aren’t taking advantage of its potential. Millions of accounts are left dormant, with outdated employment history and a lack of updated content. There are many ways to look unprofessional via LinkedIn: think your profile photo is  hit? Potential employers might click away from your profile just because you’re drinking a beer in it.

So how do you tick all the right boxes on LinkedIn?

As with all things social media, it pays to be social. Having a rich community of connections will expand your professional reach significantly. Your profile will only be ‘searchable’ by first, second and third-degree connections. That means that someone who is a connection of a connection of your connection can view your profile. The higher your first-degree connection count is, the wider your profile reach.

Here are five easy ways you can grow your LinkedIn community:

1. Reel them in. Take advantage of your existing contacts; be sure to connect with everyone from your office and extend invites to those you meet at external events. The business community out in the real world is a hive of activity where we make contact with a variety of individuals across many sectors, and a diversity of LinkedIn connections will broaden your second and third-degree connection reach no end. LinkedIn gives you the option to connect with your existing email contacts and even connections from other social media accounts; take advantage of this tool and you won’t regret it!
2. Interact! LinkedIn is a social environment, so make sure you’re being as social as possible. Post status updates regularly with links to high quality content which the business community will find useful or interesting (like this blog post!) and interact with content shared by your connections.
3. Join the conversation. LinkedIn has a wealth of groups dedicated to helping and bringing together like minded business minds. Join a handful of groups within your industry and interact with posts, especially from potential new connections. This kind of interaction will boost your visibility on the platform and can be a great way to make new solid business connections outside of social media. Share your own organic content with groups and your respectability will sky-rocket; being a source of help for your connections will encourage others to connect with you.
4. Advertise. Make sure people are aware of your LinkedIn presence. An easy way to nudge people towards your profile is to put a link in your email signature. Remember: potential connections aren’t willing to go out of their way to find others online, so making things easy for them by putting a simple link in all email correspondence will make it a simple one-click connecting process.
5. Publish! Take advantage of LinkedIn’s ‘Publish‘ feature; post your own organic content for the whole LinkedIn community to see. As we’ve said before: content is king. Good quality content will be shared and interacted with far and wide, expanding your reach and encouraging new connections.

Keep up with the UK2 Blog for more social media tips and tricks!