While trying to help out a friend with her new start-up business, I’ve been talking to different people, observing and reading quite a bit about ways to get connections and attention via social media such as LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook. I’ve noticed that what I found out could also be beneficial to anyone who wants to get started in any of these mediums and perhaps finding new business or job opportunities too.
So I’ve decided that for the next few posts, it will be dedicated to what I’ve learnt. I’ll start with what I’ve been doing recently and found quick wins in. Here’s some quick easy ways you can implement to start attracting business connections right away:
- Have a professional-looking photo of yourself. According to stats from LinkedIn, profiles with photos are seven times more likely to be viewed by others. Just be sure that the photo is appropriate – this is still part of first impressions. It’s shocking what photos some people have used
- Have an intriguing headline – it doesn’t have to be your title and your current company name. It should explain your professional value in a few concise yet captivating words. E.g.“A proven sales track record in the financial services industry,” or “An experienced international engineer with strong project management skills”.
- Get a customized public profile URL – you can do this when you edit your profile. It will be an address like www.linkedin.com/in/yourname or au.linkedin.com/in/yourname
- In your email signature, create an email signature that contains your public profile URL
- Seek recommendations from clients and co-workers who have benefited from your work. Every genuine recommendation enhances your credibility
- Manage your endorsements by making sure that the people you’d most like to be associated with your brand are included in your endorsements
- Use keywords wisely:
- Search for keywords in LinkedIn that you’re thinking of using in your own profile, then examine the profiles of those that appear in the top few results
- Google yourself. Which page are you found? Ideally, you should be on page 1 of the search results. Again, examine the profiles of those that appear in the top few
- Pay extra attention to the location and frequency of the keywords. Now take that knowledge and apply it to your own profile.
- Start making connections. No matter how skilled you are at using LinkedIn’s features, you won’t show up in as many LinkedIn searches if you don’t have connections
- Post strong status updates. Link your status updates to high-quality content that is compelling to those in your network as this shows that you are on top of what’s happening in your industry. If you have a Twitter account, you can set it up to have this status update sent to your Twitter account too & vice versa. (Keep a look out for what I’ve learnt about Twitter soon)
- Next question you may have is when is the best time to post? As LinkedIn is all about work, it makes sense that the best times to post here are weekdays, in the time just before or after work for the majority of your audience: 7am – 9am or 5pm – 6pm. There are also people who mentioned that lunch time is also good time.
- Do your own research by observing when your connections / audience tend to put up their posts and updates.
- Finally, make it easy for others to contact you. Have you updated your contact details?
- Get a Company Page – are you a business owner? Or even part of management? Does your company have a company page in LinkedIn? Get all your employees to link themselves to your company page
- Upgrade – if you’re serious about getting more connections be it for a new job or for sales, do consider upgrading your account. There are several different options for you to select from depending upon your need. LinkedIn do offer some free upgrades from time to time too. And there is NO harm on taking them up.
- Add a LinkedIn ‘View My Profile’ button to your online resume, blog, or website
Taking a few minutes each day to make these changes and updates will result in increased traffic to your LinkedIn profile, so be prepared for job opportunities to come your way.
Take a look at my Resume Builder page for more tips too!
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