10 Top Tips for How to Get the Most Out of LinkedIn (and some for what not to do) Part 2

The most popular presentation I do when I perform live is my Top Ten Tips on How to Use LinkedIn (and some for what not to do). So I thought I would replicate some of the points in a blog on, where else, LinkedIn. If you would like to see me present the full version to you and your team or organisation or for an event I would of course be very happy to do so.

So here are second set of five tips on how you too could be a LinkedIn Power Profile, the first set are here in a previous blog: 

6. Add experience

Obvious really but many people don't update their current role or don't fill out what their current role actually is, who the company is, what they do at that company. If no one knows who your company is then why would you assume they do by not adding in something about the company in your experience section and what your role is there?

What you should do: 

What you shouldn't do:

7. Add visual content to experience/summary sections

Everyone knows that pictures of all kinds bring everything to life, not just on social media but in magazines, books, newspapers. Every heavy business publications like The Economist, The FT and The WSJ do this, so why don't you?

Did you know that the Top 100 posts of every month on LinkedIn always contain either a photograph, an infographic, a video or a link to a website with an image. In other words people engage with posts that have visuals and don't engage with those that don't. Same applies to your profile.

Why just put massive amounts of words on your profile and expect people to read it all? Spice it up with videos (they are streamed within the LinkedIn app or platform), website links to your website which captures attention and drives viewers to your website.

What you should do:

8. Create a content marketing plan

If you don't create it then you will have it created for you. Post sporadically on LinekdIn? Don't post at all? Share and like only? You have a content marketing plan but it's it's not strategic and it's probably not very targeted.

There are two parts to this: 1) Created content - blog posts and 2) Curated content - shared posts from other sources. LinkedIn have a 4:1:1 methodology which they say produces the most engagement.

That is for every hard sell post about your company you should post a soft sell post about your industry or and you should post 4 unrelated posts e.g. about marketing or business in your country or innovation or interesting things that other unrelated companies are doing. This increases engagement of all your posts and enables people to be more receptive to your hard sell posts.

I for example may post a reasonable amount of posts (like this one) about LinkedIn but rarely any directly about Black Marketing itself. I find that my LinkedIn posts often not written by me but giving tips on how to use LinkedIn  in groups get the most engagement, some are trending for months with hundreds of comments and shares/likes.

If you are a leader of a company you should very much set an example by leading from the front a posting your own blog on LinkedIn.  Many companies post their blogs on their website and then complain that no one views them, no one shares or likes and if they do they can't actually tell who they are. Why reinvent the wheel?

Build it and they will come is a myth unless you have millions of dollars to drive people there. LinkedIn built it so go there. Not only will you get more views, likes, shares and comments but you can share in targeted groups and drive people back to your profile. You can also see every single person's profile of who liked/commented on your posts. You can't do that on your website.

By leading from the front you will also encourage all your team to do the same thing and post their own blogs, which for an SME is a great way of marketing your brand and services directly and indirectly.

What you should do:

What you shouldn't do:

a link that doesn't work in a place where people are expecting to be able to read your content without going somewhere else...

Speaks for itself....

and don't post stuff like this...

and any baby photos!

9. Develop your company page

I am constantly amazed at the amount of companies of all sizes, SME's and MNC's that either don't have a company page on LinkedIn or haven't updated it. I am even more amazed at the amount of companies who hand their LinkedIn company page over to their HR teams to merrily post a million jobs on and expect that to be engaging.

Would you hand over control of your facebook, instagram, twitter pages or website? Not they are usually run by marketing so why hand over the most visible one, LinkedIn, to them?

You think I am over estimating the power of the LinkedIn company page? Do a search on your company on Google. Surprised that your LinkedIn company page comes top or 2nd to your website? Your facebook page no where to be seen? Don't be. This is a very unknown and underestimated part of the power of LinkedIn. 

The amount of people I have met where I have Googled their page before or during our meeting and the last update on it was 6-9 months ago or there is no update. Do you know what that says to people? You've gone bust or you have no updates....what kind of impression is that for clients, employees, investors, media and future ones of all four categories?

Certainly not the positive one that your very expensive website or time driven facebook page is supposed to be giving....don't underestimate the power of both LinkedIn search and Google search on your LinkedIn company page.

and then your LinkedIn company page looks like this...

What you should do:

note the lack of any content actually selling bank accounts but some great content for a business audience reading it to see and share

similarly, nothing about room rates but lots about business issues

the award winning L'Oreal page has some great content on relevant to the target audience of female business professionals primarily and male ones too

they get the fact that LinkedIn is a rolling content and news engine with business users expecting updates all day 

 

What you shouldn't do:

 

since when has posting lots of jobs been either attractive or engaging? how can anyone share any of this content and exactly what part of the US are these jobs and how is any of this relevant to me in Asia?

 

 

the ultimate faux pas on social media an unanswered customer complaint, not once in this case but twice.... and what's worse is that i can't even blame HR here as it's clearly marketing who are in control of this as they have posted the post from their marketing head which ironically is called "key mistakes"...the first of which I would say is letting a customer complaint fest for 2 months where 400 million professional business travelers can see it and gain a very negative impression of the brand and organisation

10. Messaging

Whatever your business objective is on LinkedIn, staying in touch, winning new clients, retaining existing clients, recruiting, being a thought leader, impressing investors, wishing to get headhunted, enhancing your personal or company brand etc, there are five ways to message people on LinkedIn but only once you have completed these other 9 tips.

1. Inmails either through Sales Navigator or Premium or Recruiter

2. Open Link messages: although Linkedin appear to be trying to phase these out, they are still a fantastic way to communicate with fellow open link members or many premium (and therefore very active) members. LinkedIn appear to be phasing out the Open Link symbol so you now have to go into people's profiles (usually premium as that is where Open Link was first given to people) and seeing if you can send them a message without needing inmails (as you can for example on my profile).  I believe that if you historically had this function then you still have it even though LinkedIn have now removed your ability to choose to opt into it and have given it to their top package.

3. Group messages: you used to be able to do this for any group for any member who had ticked the  box saying that you could. However because of some agencies in America who abused this and spammed the hell out of everyone in groups, LinkedIn took this fucntionality away and left everyone with merely 15 messages a month....so use them wisely.

4. Introductions through your first connections: one of the many reasons to have more first connections is so that you have more 2nd and 3rd connections but also so that you have more 1st connections in which you can ask to introduce you to their 1st connections, your 2nd connections.

5. 1st Connections: of course the simplest way to message people on LinkedIn is through your first connections.

But once you have your lists all created through Premium or Sales Navigator you still need a compelling headline and message to get people to open them and respond (not least so that you can get your inmails back and reuse them as you now only get them back if someone does respond, either negatively or positively).

The briefer the better. LinkedIn suggest 150 words max and I think based on my experience that the briefer the better. These are my suggestions on what to do and what not to do.

What you should do:

simple, concise, references someone we both know, flatters, nice

simple call to action, reference point again, gets a reaction

What you shouldn't do:

anyone who sends you  a mail and asks you to reply to them at a gmail account is clear scamming...why not a company account? never trust a gmail only account on LinkedIn...remember it's business

really, name?

i feel honoured....apart from the fact that my business is in Asia..so why does it feel like a scam?

on so many levels this is wrong....but so funny to read....i especially like the phrase "we have ruled out doing this here locally to avoid certain things" like the mafia, the police.......

Thank you for reading and if you would like me to present the complete Top Ten Tips on How to Use LinkedIn (and some for what not to do) please contact me. I regularly do this talk in Singapore, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Sydney, Manila and anywhere else people want me to.

Cheers

Chris