How often do you use LinkedIn? Depending on your personal social media habits, which can be daily, weekly, or less. LinkedIn continues to grow, primarily due to its importance for business networking and job seeking. Let’s look at ways you can build your LinkedIn profile and boost your personal branding.
Optimize Your LinkedIn Profile
What’s on your LinkedIn Profile right now? Whatever it is, make sure that it’s concise and tells a fast, clear story about who you are as a professional. Your LinkedIn includes,
Current or desired job title
Location
Link to your website, blog, or portfolio
A strong About section that summarizes your experience and expertise.
Your skills and languages
Career experience & publications (if any)
Education
Recent Activities
Interests and causes
Recommendations
Depending on how long you’ve had your LinkedIn account and how active you are, some of this may be messy. For example, if you’ve had your LinkedIn profile since college, you may have a lot of irrelevant and outdated information. Clean up your profile and ensure that it centers on what you want to present. This will include deleting job information that is not relevant to your career goals and streamlining your interests.
Post Regularly About Your Industry and Job
You’re an expert in your job – that’s why you have it. Share content about your industry and the job that you do. Mix and match what you share and include,
Relevant news articles
Tips and insights about your industry and job
Business-related and appropriate humor that your peers will find amusing.
Blog articles you write about your industry or special interests.
Milestone sharing
Build Community and Interact
Join relevant communities, however, and engage in conversations. Whenever you see opportunities to share your knowledge, take it and give your expert opinion on the topic asked. Whenever you engage with community posts or posts on your timeline, remember,
Keep it professional. Use neutral language and keep your responses relevant to the topic at hand.
Do not engage with people attempting to start trouble. Unfortunately, we have seen an increase in less professional engagement on LinkedIn. Do not engage with people who only want to argue or who are rude. Block them and make comments that speak around them and bring the discussion back to the topic at hand.
Encourage others to speak up. Don’t just say your piece and be done. Encourage others to build on what you share and ask open-ended questions.
LinkedIn is one of the most powerful platforms for building your professional image and brand. Use it wisely, and you will see opportunities open up for you.
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