You have a job. As far as you’re aware, you’re not in danger of being made redundant.  Maybe you even have a career, or a career path, in front of you.  Whatever your situation, you’re absolutely sure about one thing. You’re an unhappy employee.

At times like this, when there are lots of people unemployed and looking for a job, and thousands of people who are under-employed, you probably feel a bit guilty about the way you view your job. After all, many people would love to have your job and the job security you enjoy.

However, that doesn’t make any difference to you. If you’re an unhappy employee, you’re an unhappy employee. That’s how you feel, so be honest with yourself. However, there are things you can do to lessen that sense of unhappiness,  so take action, too.

Take LinkedIn Seriously

There are 11 million people in the UK who are on LinkedIn.  If you’re not one of them, sign up now.  If you are already on LinkedIn, commit to updating your profile.

The very fact that you’re starting to think seriously about your career is a step forward. You’ll immediately think about the shape of your career to date, what you have achieved and what you would like to do. This is an important change to your frame of mind.

You’ll also start to think about how to present yourself and your achievements to the world.

Update Your LinkedIn Profile

Now that you’ve started to think about your whole career, take a look at your current LinkedIn profile.  Consider how you can improve it. Most profiles are either incomplete, poorly written or both. You may be an unhappy employee, but you can present yourself and our successes positively.

Before you begin with the actual updating process, find five positive things to say about yourself. Start by remembering what you have achieved in your career and what you are really proud of having done.

You may be an unhappy employee today, but:

• You have won an award for ………….
• You gained an additional qualification in …………
• You are one of the people responsible for …………….(specific achievement).

Look for examples of the positive contribution you are making.  Demonstrate to yourself that you are an asset to your employer.

Use the information you gather to help you to write the overview/summary to your profile and to decide on your professional headline.

Focus On Your Skills And Expertise

As a result of thinking about your experience identify some additional skills that you know you have.  Then place them in the skills and expertise section of your profile. Try to use industry specific terms where you can.  Try to use terms that will differentiate you from others.  Take your time to get this right.  It will help your profile to be found more often via LinkedIn search.

You may have experience in designing assessment centres for example.

You may be an expert in change management in the NHS.

You might be a financial services risk management specialist.

Be specific about what you can do.  Encapsulate your success in the skills you define.  You can nominate up to thirty skills so make a long list.

Then go and get some endorsements for your expertise.  Find people who agree that you have these talents.

Write a note to each person you would like to endorse you.  Don’t use group e-mails or the LinkedIn messaging function that allows you to contact fifty people at once.  Write to individuals and craft each e-mail so that it is clear that it has been written with only one recipient in mind.  Remind the person about how you have demonstrated the expertise you are asking him or her to endorse.  Then ask politely for the endorsement.

You will probably identify some additional achievements as you think more about your expertise. Go back and revise what you have written earlier in your profile and remember that an unhappy employee can still feel good about his or her achievements.

An Unhappy Employee Looks Ahead

Many people in employment forget that they are on a journey.

The past is theirs to review.

The present is what they are experiencing now.

The future is waiting to be shaped.

If you are an unhappy employee today, there is no reason to believe that you will be unhappy in the future, too.

Think about the changes you would like to make to your working life in order to stop being an unhappy employee.  Don’t just focus on getting a new job.  Think about what your role needs to encompass in order for you to be happy at work.

Now go back to your LinkedIn summary and write a short paragraph about your ambitions.

(Name) is currently working  in …………. (type of role) and hopes to …………. (aspiration)

(Name)  looks to continue to make a contribution to …………. in …………… (type of organisation)

(Name) is keen to develop ……….. (aspiration)

Statements like these are coded messages that hint at what you want to do.  Practise writing such statements.

The Value Of LinkedIn To Employees

If you are an unhappy employee – or any other type of employee – LinkedIn is a showcase for your talents and a pointer to your ambitions and aspirations.  As an employed person you are unlikely to have a personal website to help you to advance your career, although more people are starting to use the web in this way. This means that you need to use LinkedIn to draw attention to your achievements and indicate how you would like to progress your career.

Update your profile. After that things will start to happen.

• Your colleagues may see how you summarise yourself.  They may not have thought of you in that way before.
• Your employer may see your profile and possibly recognise the value you add at work.
• Your professional community may see your profile.  They just might remember what you do and introduce you to another professional colleague or to a potential employee.
• Third parties may see your profile. That group includes recruiters.

The people above will be pleased to read a LinkedIn profile that is clearly focused. Your LinkedIn profile will add value to you as an employee in lots of ways.

Finally ……….

Every one endures spells of unhappiness at work.  It is an inevitable part of working life. You can take control of the present and plan your future by using LinkedIn to show the world just how successful you have been and what you aspire to do now.

If you need help with updating your LinkedIn profile then we can help.  Book a tutorial session or take a look at our LinkedIn profile optimization service. 

The job’s done.

You can forget about LinkedIn can’t you? That’s what most professional people do, isn’t it?

The next time you’ll pay attention to your LinkedIn profile is when you change your job or when something significant happens that means you need to look at it again.

If this is the way you treat your LinkedIn profile you’re making a big mistake.  Your LinkedIn profile is a valuable online asset.

Here are five reasons why you should pay attention to your LinkedIn profile every week.

# 1 The Right People Are On LinkedIn

There are more than 200 million professional people on LinkedIn.  11 million of them are in the UK. What’s more, senior people tend to make use of LinkedIn to grow their professional networks and to build relationships with the right sort of people in their industry.

Surely you would want to get an invitation to an event where such groups of people were meeting.  You’re already invited to the party. You can use your LinkedIn profile to help you to rub shoulders with the right people and to engage with them.

#2 You Can Connect With A Clearly Defined Group Of People

Who do you connect with on LinkedIn?  Are your connections the people you know or have met at networking meetings?  Are they the people who have contacted you and asked you to connect?

If that’s the case, you need to use your LinkedIn profile differently.

Go out and connect, via LinkedIn, with professional people. 

These professional people  may be in your industry and you can see a good reason for connecting.  That means you could connect with some of the people who are in the same groups as you.  You could connect with people who are in complimentary businesses and roles.  You could connect with professional people who have similar interests to yours and so on.  You’ll know who the right people are.  For you the task is to be proactive.

#3 The Update Button Will Build Your Visibility

How often do you update the people on LinkedIn with useful information?  How often do you update your own community with valuable insights?  How often do you like, or share, or comment on, the updates of your connections?

Well, you need to be active.  You need to use that LinkedIn update  button. Out of sight is out of mind in the virtual world as well as in the real world. If you don’t update regularly, you’re won’t be keeping your name in front of the people you are looking to engage with.

However, you need to be helpful. That will mean the people in your LinkedIn community will remember you in a positive way, too. Notice with the update I’ve chosen to reproduce here I’m being helpful to my LinkedIn community.  I’m sharing some good reading on marketing with the professional people I’m connected with.

#4 You Can Drive Traffic To Your Website Via Your LinkedIn Profile

Go and check your LinkedIn profile now.  How many links to your website – or to your entry in a professional directory – or to another valuable piece of online real estate – have you included?  Do you include calls to action in your text on LinkedIn?  Do some of your updates lead back to your website?  Do the projects you have included in your LinkedIn profile take people to your website?

Don’t leave your LinkedIn profile sitting in isolation.  Your LinkedIn profile is a staging post. Help readers of your LinkedIn profile to engage further with you. Include links and encourage people to follow them.

#5 You Can Display Group Memberships On Your LinkedIn Profile

LinkedIn groups are powerful tools for building your online visibility and making connections with the thought leaders and key people in your niche.

It’s important to be active in the right LinkedIn groups.  If you’re active in discussions in those groups you will build engagement with more people.  If you’ve chosen the right groups, you’ll be building engagement with more of the right people.

Display your group memberships on your profile and you’ll also start to draw the right people to you.

Check Your LinkedIn Profile Now

So it’s time to go and look at

• your connections strategy
• your use of LinkedIn updates
• your linking strategy
• your LinkedIn group activity.

Your LinkedIn profile will work harder for you if you don’t stop when you’ve written about your career, but you then use LinkedIn to build your standing in your industry.

Now what’s your view?  What would you like to add?  Are you paying enough attention to your LinkedIn profile?

You can use your LinkedIn company page to build your brand, your reputation and your success.  However, since there are more than 2 million LinkedIn company pages, you will need to take steps to get your page noticed by the right people…………. So what do you need to do?

#1 – Be Visual

LinkedIn company pages have changed recently.  They have become more visual.

• You can display a square logo or image in addition to your company information.
• You can add a cover image that people see when they first visit your page.
• You can create banners that will draw attention to what you say on your LinkedIn company page.
• You can add icons to illustrate your products and services.
• You can also add videos and other visual media.

All of this means that your LinkedIn company page is the place to showcase your business.  People notice the visual, and the colourful, so by making use of these features on LinkedIn, your page will be noticed, and possibly remembered, by more people.

Action:

Jump in.  Update your LinkedIn company page and be more visual.

#2 – Write With LinkedIn Search In Mind

LinkedIn search is a feature that works extraordinarily well.  If you’ve ever used it yourself, you’ll know that it really does help you to find the type of people you’re looking for.  When people use LinkedIn search they can use very detailed criteria to help them.

What’s really important is to think carefully about key words and what those people searching on LinkedIn will be typing into the search function.  There’s plenty of evidence to suggest that people do search for suppliers on LinkedIn, so don’t miss the opportunity to be found on this platform.

Make sure you are found by the people who you would like to find you by taking advantage of the opportunities that this feature presents.

• You can indicate where you are via your LinkedIn company page, so do so, if location matters to your business.
• You can write about your specialism.
• You can use words which identify the type of business you are in.

It’s also important to remember that Google and LinkedIn search often work collaboratively. What comes up in LinkedIn searches can also come up in Google searches.

Action:

Make a list of the terms you think your ideal client will be using on LinkedIn if he or she were actually looking for you and couldn’t remember your name.  Include all those terms in your entry.

#3 – Add Your Principal Products And Services

Your LinkedIn company page is almost like an additional website. You can include details of your products and services via the Products and Services tab.

• You can target what you write to address the interests and concerns of your LinkedIn target audience.
• You can include links to your sales pages or to additional information on your website.
• You can outline the benefits that your deliver.

It’s always a good idea to write about the product or service you think will be of most interest to LinkedIn members first. That’s the same with any list.  Put the most important and the most interesting points first.

Action:

Decide which of your products and services you are going to add.  Write about them with the interests of your LinkedIn audience in mind.

#4 – Add Relevant Updates To Your LinkedIn Company Page

Engagement is the lifeblood of all online social platforms. You want to speak to your target audience and enter into conversations with your audience via your company page..

Remember that you’re drawing an audience to you via the quality of your content.  Make your updates useful, interesting, entertaining, informative and more.  Encourage people to want to follow your page so that they can receive your updates.

The updates feature can help you even more. You can target updates and send them to segments of your audience.   You might target people you definitely know you have met at an event.  You could target in terms of company or company size, or location and so on.

You’re looking for your followers to like, comment and share your content, so make sure what you put in your updates is, above everything else, sharable.

Action:

Decide who, in your company, is going to update your LinkedIn company page.  Make sure you identify a team of people.  Decide what your editorial strategy is going to be and what you want to achieve with your updates.  Then get to work.

#5 – Prove Your Value

An important element of the social web is social proof.  People show they value that you do by following you, by liking your content, by sharing your content and so on.  However, getting recommendations for your products and services helps you to prove your worth and value.

Therefore, once you have decided which of your products and services you want to promote via your LinkedIn company page, it’s time to seek out recommendations.

Ask your clients to come to your company page and endorse what you do by writing a short testimonial. These are third party statements. That makes them valuable.  You  can use them on your website as well as on your LinkedIn company page  Don’t wait for people to decide to write testimonials.  Ask them to write something for you.

Action:

Make a list of the clients for whom you know you have done a great job.  Talk to them about your LinkedIn company page and ask them to write a testimonial for you on your page.

Over To You

So what are your thoughts?

Are these the best ways to get your page noticed?  Are you using these tactics with your LinkedIn company page? What works for you?  Is your LinkedIn company page helping your business to succeed?

By the way, why not go over to LinkedIn and follow The Adams Consultancy Ltd when you’ve finished reading?

What changes have been made and what are the implications for your LinkedIn profile?  The following LinkedIn profile tips will help you to make sure you’re not left behind.

Change #1: Your Photograph Is Larger

Your photograph looks larger.   It’s also more prominently displayed.  It will definitely be seen as soon as someone views your profile. People take in information visually faster than they take in words.  Therefore, make sure your image presents the right impression.

Over the last week or so, as I’ve been optimizing LinkedIn profiles, I’ve seen non-existent images.  Yes, some people still don’t have an image up on LinkedIn.  I’ve seen cartoons and they certainly don’t create the right impression.  I’ve seen images where the contrast is so poor I really can’t make out who I’m looking at.

Therefore, check your image.  Does it look good on your PC, on your laptop and via your smartphone?

If it’s an old image up there on your LinkedIn profile, perhaps now’s the time to update it.

Change #2: Your Professional Headline Is More Prominent

Someone viewing your LinkedIn profile will see your picture first and then look at your professional headline.  Is that  headline interesting?

• Does your professional headline capture attention?
• Have you set out the essence of what you do in your headline?
• Have you made the most of those 120 characters?

You need to. It could be your next employer, a headhunter, a potential strategic partner or your next new client looking at your LinkedIn profile.

Make your headline count.

Change #3: Shared Interests Are Visible

There are quite a few new features that encourage people to connect and to interact. When you look at someone else’s profile, you can now see quite easily what you have in common with that person.

• Which groups do you both belong to?
• Which skills do you share?
• Which aspects of your personal history are similar to those of the other person?

You can now tell – at a glance.

So, if you’re looking for ways to engage with particular individuals, that task just became so much easier. It’s also easier for the people you want to connect with to find out more about you – provided you’ve updated your LinkedIn profile, that is.

Make your LinkedIn profile work harder for you.  Share the sort of information that will help you to build your professional community effectively.  The tools are there.  Use them.

Change #4: Interactions Matter More Than Ever

So many people think that once they have optimized their LinkedIn profile they can go away and leave it alone. That’s just not true. LinkedIn profiles need to be active.  Your LinkedIn profile’s most valuable element is the update function.  Keep in touch.  Send messages.   Post updates.  Post with purpose.

• You want to be remembered.
• You want to be remembered for the things that matter to you.

When you’ve finished, LinkedIn will even help you to tell the world what you’ve done and help you to encourage more people to connect with you.

Make sure your LinkedIn profile is an active profile.  It’s much easier to achieve this these days.

Change #5: Visual Matters Even More On LinkedIn Profiles

Have you noticed that you can upload graphics, videos, PowerPoint presentations and more to your LinkedIn profile?

You can bring your LinkedIn presence to life.  You can give depth to some of the things you want people to remember about you.

Seize the opportunity.  Get visual.

Changes To Your LinkedIn Profile

Are you keeping up with all the changes?  Have you taken advantage of these changes to LinkedIn profiles?  Are you making the most of your LinkedIn profile?  If you’re not, it’s time you did.

See also: Three Ways To Use LinkedIn Updates To Build Your Success Online

Are you well behaved online, especially on LinkedIn®?

How would you know? How do people tell you when you’re behaving well or badly?

Are you paying attention to the responses that are coming back to you about your behaviour?

The good news is there are plenty of ways of finding out what your connections on LinkedIn® are telling you. You just need to pay attention.

When they deconnect …

Of course, you might not notice. You don’t get an e-mail from LinkedIn when someone deconnects.  You just notice your total number of connections has gone down.

If you keep a check on who you’re connected with, you’ll be able to work out who has severed the connection.

You’re off the hook if the person has left LinkedIn®.  Otherwise, you need to think about what you’re doing to annoy them.

Do you send out lots of updates on LinkedIn®?

Do you use LinkedIn® to send out “buy now” or “buy this” messages?

Do you use LinkedIn® in very different ways from how your other connections use it?

Think about your LinkedIn® Etiquette and prepare to be honest with yourself about how you’re behaving.

When they unfollow ….

You can follow people on LinkedIn whether or not you’re connected to them. In fact, LinkedIn® is regularly inviting you to follow famous people.

If people unfollow you, they probably don’t like what you’re doing.

Alternatively, they think you’re boring.

Then again, they might think you have nothing new to say.

All of this is important feedback.  It tells you that – in the opinion of your connections – you’re adding to the internet noise.  You’re not rising above it.

It’s time to think about your approach to posting and updating and what you share on LinkedIn®.

When the silence is deafening …

Coherent community or not?

You ask questions.  You send out messages to people fifty at a time.

You post promotions on your group.  You post promotions or offers via your updates.

You’re busy on LinkedIn®.

…And there’s nothing coming back. Nobody’s commenting or sharing or noticing.

That’s easy to interpret.  You’re saying the wrong things to your connections.

This could mean you’ve connected with the wrong people or that you’re not making your updates interesting.

Have you just built your connections by agreeing to connect with people who have approached you, or have you built up your connections with clear objectives in mind?

If you haven’t developed a proactive connections strategy, then you can’t expect to be able to speak to your community.  You don’t have one.

There are consequences to this. The members of your community might not have too much in common, for example.

Take a look at your connections and think how many of them you really would like to have in your professional network. Ask yourself, too, if you’re saying things that are going to be interesting to your network as it stands today.

Improve your LinkedIn etiquette

Your LinkedIn® community could be a powerful resource whether you’re looking to advance your career or build your business.

It won’t help you if you’re creating the wrong community or if you’re communicating with it in the wrong way.  Therefore, look at your LinkedIn® output and ask yourself if you would like to be on the receiving end of the material you send out.

Plan to improve your approach for the future.  Whatever you’re doing, if you’re not getting the responses you want, it’s time to do something different.

Does your online biography belong here?

Most people can introduce themselves passably at networking events.  They can produce CVs that give their career histories, and write “About” pages that reveal something about their mission, ethos and values.

But online biographies?

Well, they’re often forgotten. They languish online filled with out-of-date information.

They are written hurriedly and without much thought. That goes for LinkedIn® profiles as well as those entries in professional directories, or in guides to local businesses.

You may write your entry and forget it, but other people are looking at those biographies, and especially at your LinkedIn® profile. Is this a problem for you?

Ask yourself the following questions to see if you really should be embarrassed by your online biographies.

Has the biography been updated in the last six months?

Life changes quickly. Whether you’re in employment, self-employed or in business, what you want the world to remember about your changes regularly.

Those biographies could be working against you, promoting products you no longer supply, suggesting people get in touch with you about something that’s no longer central to what you do, or offer you the type of job that you’re no longer looking for.

The solution?

1. Make a list of all the places where you have online entries.
2. Create an editorial calendar and timetable showing when you will update each entry.
3. Make a note of the things you want to include in each biography when you come to update.
4. Be prepared to delete information as soon as it becomes out of date even if you only updated your biography as few weeks ago.
5. Stick to your timetable for updating.

Was the biography written with a specific audience in mind?

When you write online biographies, you often don’t give them much thought. You want to get the boxes filled in and the job done as quickly as possible.  You don’t write with a reader in mind.  You might not even write your entry particularly well. There are plenty of online biographies that are filled with spelling mistakes, poor grammar and inelegant prose.

If you’re honest with yourself, as you write, you’re just aiming to finish the task and move onto something more interesting and more important as quickly as you can.

It’s important to do something quite different when you come to update your biographies.  You want to be remembered in a positive way.  Therefore, you need to change your approach and write a different sort of online biography.

The solution?

1. Speak directly to your ideal client or to your ideal employer as you write your biography.
2. Think about what this ideal reader might want to know about you and write about that.
3. Shape the content to match the reader’s interests.
4. Allocate  enough time to the task to make your biography interesting.

Are readers of the online biographies encouraged to take action?

Most online biographies are flat.  They say:

“This is me.  This is my history.  This is what I do.”

There’s no encouragement to do more than read the biography and then go away.  That means your biography isn’t really much use to you as an individual or as a business person.  You’re ticking a box as you write.  When you finish, you’ll be able to say you’ve written that biography but not much else.

The solution?

1. Insert calls to action.
2. Ask the reader to do something as a result of reading what you have written.

Contact you by e-mail or telephone.
Sign up to download something.
Get in touch for a copy of your complete CV.

Above all, do something to start to build a relationship with your readers.

You and your online biographies

Online biographies are online outposts for your business or your personal brand.

Make the most of them and write with a purpose.  Use them to encourage people to build relationships with you.  Use your online biographies proactively and then you’ll find they’ll be worth updating and promoting.

Don’t be like the person I spoke to yesterday who said:

“Please don’t look at my LinkedIn profile!  Let me tell you about myself.”

It doesn’t work.  Anyone would go and look after hearing something like that!  Well, I did.  Wouldn’t you?

See also:

Who’s looking at your LinkedIn profile and why it matters

Is your LinkedIn profile letting you down?

Today I’m drawing together some more information about how to encourage people to follow you and your company.

First, have you seen this?  It’s called a member box.

It’s a useful encouragement to people to click through to LinkedIn® to take a look at your profile.

If you click on the image, you’ll be taken to my profile.

This can be a “live” link and be updated whenever you update your profile.  I’ve chosen to use a gif just to show the profile as it is today.

Then there’s the company follow button.  Go to the Help Centre when you’re logged in to LinkedIn® to find out more.

After that you can encourage people to view your profile.

There’s some advice on promoting your public profile in the Help Centre, too.

What’s often a good idea is to use these types of buttons in your e-mail signature.  Once again LinkedIn® has some valuable advice in the Help Centre.

However, to get a lot more out of LinkedIn® take a look at the Plugins page.

One of the things you can learn how to do on this page is to produce a member box like the one I’ve placed near the beginning of this post.

However, one plug-in I really like is the one that gives a company overview.

I haven’t seen too many people using this, but here’s the overview for our company.

I created it whilst logged in to LinkedIn® so it says I am following the company – which I am, of course.

You may wish to follow us, too.

LinkedIn Resources For The Non-Technical LinkedIn User

There’s a lot you can do to promote your own profile or to promote your business on LinkedIn®.  There’s also plenty of help to enable you to do this well.

If you’re prepared to work in HTML mode and cut and paste some code, you can do it.

Now why don’t you share this post on LinkedIn®?

• How many times has your profile been viewed in the last few days?
• How many times have you come up in searches in the last week?

Do you know?

Do you care?

You should.

These statistics indicate how well your profile is working. 

Well someone’s found you.

They show you how often people are finding your profile.

They also show how many people are interested enough to take a look at your profile once they have seen your headline.

That’s valuable feedback about how well your LinkedIn® profile works.

Being Found On LinkedIn Means You’re Doing Something Right!

LinkedIn® is an important entry point into your business’s customer funnel.  It’s also a means by which your next employer just might find you.

You want the right people to find your profile and you want those people to take an interest in what you do. That means you need a profile that works.

You’ll know that  your profile is working well for you,  if you’re being found via searches and if your profile is being viewed.

Are your statistics as good as, or better than, these?

Is your graph at least as good as the one below?

LinkedIn Graphs And Profile Optimization

Something’s working!

This graph shows how a client improved the visibility of her profile as we worked on her LinkedIn® presence.

You can see there is a progression.

The order in which we made changes is as follows:

1. Update professional headline.
2. Update professional summary.
3. Create a list of relevant specialities.
4. Rewrite experience paying attention to headings and key words.
5. List the right skills and expertise.

As soon as the skills and expertise function was introduced, I urged our clients to make use of it. 

It gives your profile a focus.  It helps you to be found,  if you say what you’re good at.

The graph above shows what happens as you optimize the elements of your profile that are keyword sensitive.

Take a look at your own profile and check that you’ve done the right amount of work on these key features.  Check, too, that you are coming up in searches.

If you’d like some help with optimizing your profile take a look at our LinkedIn Profile Writing and Optimization service.

See also:

What does a good LinkedIn profile look like?

How to use LinkedIn endorsements to build your credibility in your marketplace.

Follow us on LinkedIn

Quite a few people have been asking about Follow buttons.

Most of us have worked out how to put a “View my LinkedIn Profile” button somewhere on our websites.

What about your company?

As a senior person in your organisation, you want people to follow your company.

So what do you do?

How do you get your LinkedIn button to encourage more people to follow your company?

How do you get your LinkedIn Button?

You go over to the appropriate page on the  LinkedIn Developers Site.

You put the name of your company in the box.

You decide how you want your followers’ list displayed.

You grab the code.

If you’re using WordPress you then insert the code into your page or post whilst in the HTML mode.

Easy.

Click on the term The Adams Consultancy Ltd for the direct link to the page.

Do share this update with business owners you know are building their follower list on LinkedIn.

Oh yes, please come and follow The Adams Consultancy Ltd on LinkedIn, too.

Want to use LinkedIn to acquire more of these?

LinkedIn® is the world’s largest social network for professional people.

It’s growing day by day and week by week.

How can you make the most of the marketing opportunities LinkedIn® presents?

Here are five tips to help you get started. 

#1 Optimise your LinkedIn profile

To begin with make sure your profile is complete. Upload a photograph.  Use your profile to speak to your business’s ideal clients. Make sure you add value especially in your headline and in your professional summary. Then look at the Skills and Expertise section. Think carefully about the skills you nominate.  Contact your network and start asking for endorsements. The endorsements will help your marketing as will the fact that you’re getting in touch with people in your network.

#2 Create or update your LinkedIn company page

Company pages on LinkedIn® are relatively new and they’ve recently been updated.  There are approximately two million company pages on LinkedIn®. Create one because it’s your business’s home on LinkedIn®.  Then make your page welcoming.  Think about what you could write in your updates that would be of interest to your network and especially to the people you want to attract to your page.

Then make a point of uploading some information about your company’s products and services.  Ask for recommendations for them and get what you do noticed. .

#3 Ask people to follow your company page

Your page needs followers if it’s going to have any credibility. Contact your connections and, where appropriate, ask them to follow your company page. Give them a reason for doing so.  Explain what you will be covering in your updates. Offer a free guide or something of value and interest that can be downloaded once someone has visited.

Commit to telling the world about your page, or at least tell the part of the world that you want to engage with that you have a company page on LinkedIn®.

#4 Remind people that you’re on LinkedIn

It’s easy to forget, but you could put something in your e-mail signature about having a company page on LinkedIn®. You could create an automatic message that goes out to your new Twitter followers inviting them to follow your page on LinkedIn®. You could ask people to follow your company on LinkedIn® whenever you make a presentation or write an article for your website.

You could do a lot to keep your page in people’s minds.

#5 Write regular updates

This applies to your personal profile and to your company page on LinkedIn®.

If your LinkedIn® profile is static, and if your company page is never updated, then you’re missing out on the real value and potential of LinkedIn®.

Be active.  Write useful updates.  Ask interesting questions.  Write sharable material.

The result will be that you draw more of the right sort of people to your company page.

Finally ….

Commit to taking action on a regular basis. With all types of content marketing it’s the commitment to the long term that really counts.  Keep at it.  Work hard to promote your personal profile and your company page and you’re doing a lot to market your business using LinkedIn®.

Next time I’ll talk more about optimising your LinkedIn® profile to improve your marketing activities.

Meanwhile, you may also like to read:

What does a good LinkedIn profile look like?

Oh, yes, do take a look at The Adams Consultancy Ltd’s company page on LinkedIn®.

The Adams Consultancy Ltd on LinkedIn

Get in touch if you’d like help with marketing using LinkedIn® and using LinkedIn® to build your business.