When you check your LinkedIn profile, the first thing you may notice is who’s viewed your profile. So let’s be clear someone has probably looked at your profile today.
Ask yourself these questions:
How did they find you? Via LinkedIn connections/searches or a Google Search?
Alternatively, you may have been in direct contact, and they clicked your email signature LinkedIn profile address (You do have one – right?).
Did you leave a voicemail, and they looked you up on LinkedIn before replying?
Did you meet at a network live event (remember those), or were you on a virtual event/webinar?
Importantly, what do your visitors see when they view your profile?
Are they looking at What do you do, and will your profile really answer the question?
Let’s start at the basics. Is your LinkedIn profile complete?
Follow these seven steps to complete your profile. These are the most viewed sections on LinkedIn profiles:
- Headline: What do you do
- Description: Endorses the headline
- About: A summary of your skills, services, USP and more
- Featured: Key content, Video and articles
- Activity: Are you engaging with content and your connections
- Experience: Are you whom they are looking for
- Recommendations: Connection Endorsements
Do you use words and phrases that possible business connections may use to find you and your services?
Does the picture paint a thousand words?
Your profile picture is who you are – not cats, kids, or other no business-focused ‘fun’ images. So get a professional head and shoulders corporate profile picture – and smile!
Are you connected?
The minimum target of connections on LinkedIn is 500+
Less than 500, and you do not present an important business image.
Do you send and receive connection LinkedIn invitations?
LinkedIn is all about connections. Therefore, if you post content, you want to have as many relevant target clients/contacts to view that content as possible.
Create a target list and work through the priority order to send invitations as regular as possible, daily or weekly but remember to stay within LinkedIn invitation limits.
Who should you connect with?
- Your target clients are an obvious choice
- Potential employers if you are job hunting
- Key influencers in your sector
- Don’t forget to connect with suppliers and 3rd party contacts
All of the above will improve the impact of content on your news feed.
What about LinkedIn invitations you receive?
The more invitations you send and content you post, the more people will find you, and the more people will view your profile. Once there, your profile should encourage them to invite you to connect or follow the content posts you make.
A simple rule of thumb for accepting invitations:
- Do you know them
- Do they work in your industry or target market sector?
- Have they actually viewed your profile?
- Have they sent a personalised Why I want you to connect with me message?
Do you promote your content?
Most people who post content on LinkedIn do not receive huge views (traffic).
You can improve your prospects with some simple pre-post actions:
- Have a great title
- Include a contributor quote and ask them to share it with their network
- Include Influencer references or comments
- Ask an engaging question
- Add critical expert advice for a specific sector topic
- Use relevant hashtags
- Always include a relevant and exciting image.
- Reference other interesting content
- Respond to other questions asked
- Include a Video or link
- Use lists, top 5 or top 10, numbers, bullet points
- Include a closing what next call to action
Are you in the game?
To succeed on LinkedIn, you need to be in the game.
- Make sure your profile is 100 per cent complete
- Add content frequently – as long as it is relevant and professional quality – if not, stick it on Facebook!
- Send connection invitations
- Respond to invitations you receive
- Message and communicate with your connections
So, yes, LinkedIn can help you and your business. But first, you need to make sure that everything is in place, your profile is complete, and you set aside time each day to make it work.
This article is part of a series of articles on LinkedIn and Digital Marketing produced by John Heffernan from RedLive Media for Inside Hospitality Solutions.
Follow IHS on LinkedIn and see you next time.
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