New Year on LinkedIn

Happy New Year!  I love the fresh new possibilities. Setting goals. New ideas. Getting organized. Taking stock.  Reevaluating. Trying to work smarter, not harder in the upcoming year.

Well, LinkedIn is one of the best tools to help you get the new year off to the right start.  Yes, it’s true. This is where you will find your professional network and discover their ideas, concerns, successes, events, and projects. So, what should YOU do right now?

Here are my five top ideas to start the new year with a bang. 🎉

1.  Relationships.

Figure out who you need to meet or get to know better in the new year.  Anticipate the coming year’s events and projects and the people who will matter the most. Your success is largely connected to your connections. So why not focus on those people?

Nurture your best first-level LinkedIn connections. I love my mantra “be the friend first,” which means don’t wait for others to build the relationship.  Be the one to mention, thank, congratulate, and support. Be the one to add valuable comments to a new connection’s post.  Introduce. Recommend. Endorse.  Be the Friend First.

Use the Celebrations tab to prompt you to engage. This makes it easy to congratulate him on that new job or wish her a happy birthday.

2.  Brand

New years are fantastic opportunities for new beginnings. So, have you updated your LinkedIn profile to reflect your new focus or that new initiative?

Maybe you have a new project, event, or industry focus? Maybe you are opening a new geographic region for your company. Maybe you are shifting the emphasis to a new solution or vertical or event?  Maybe your personal interests or volunteering has taken center stage for you with a whole life change?

The first step is to reflect on all the changes you have made OR are contemplating.  Go ahead now and update how you come across online.  Too many people wait and miss out. Put this on your calendar for the first week of January.

3.  Visibility.

Visibility equals opportunity. We all want to be “top of mind” with our prospects and clients.  And the new year is when new projects are being considered.  Some of our connections are sitting in new corporate seats. They are planning new events or launches or team organization. This is the time.

We have a few choices. We can randomly decide about our content each day, or we can try to plan to gain the right visibility.

Pick your lanes. Pick those topics or pillars that mean the most to you. Pick the topics that will inspire your clients.  If you are randomly posting and commenting across dozens of topics, you will become known for nothing. Be known for one or a few topics.

Valuable commenting is the best strategy for all of us. These types of comments engage, inspire, question, expand, or challenge the post.  Tell a mini story. Ask an insightful question. Put the post’s theory into a larger context.  Expand the conversation to a similar topic and include another thought leader.

Want to create content this year? Great news and no better place than LinkedIn. (Still start with commenting by the way) Personalize your posts, videos, and articles with your insights and perspectives.  Reciting statistics or facts without a point of view is wasted energy.  Share your voice. You can do it!

4.  Security

Now’s the time to shore up your privacy and security. Check the settings because new ones are added all the time. Sign up for two-factor authentication to secure your account. Add in all your email addresses so you won’t inadvertently create a future account or login issue for yourself. (This happens all the time!)

Now is also a great month to download your data. You want to own a copy of the data about your connections, articles, recommendations, etc.  Download the profile data. Simply request the download through settings.

5.  Time Management

Scrolling and scrolling along the main feed every day is a waste of time no matter what social media platform you are using. Instead, prioritize your time with a more focused feed.  Train your feed to your actual preferences by unfollowing people.  Save specific feeds of interest or use Sales Navigator to keep you more focused on your priority viewing.

Create a daily routine of the most essential tasks on LinkedIn.  Dedicate a specific amount of time.

People ask me how much time they will need. Well, this depends on how active and valuable your LinkedIn network is.  Once you have things rocking, you will be getting loads of helpful messages, invitations, and ideas. The point is to be effective.

Certain things everyone needs to do daily. Check your notifications, invitations, celebrations list, and messages. Respond accordingly and with friendly follow-up. Check to see who has viewed your profile to see if you might want to invite or engage them somehow.  All these tasks are reactive and can be done very quickly but you are not done.

Now let’s focus on a few valuable proactive tasks to incorporate into your daily and/or weekly routine. Start with your big goals for the year. Figure out the people you need to win over to help make your journey easier or faster. That is where you focus your attention on LinkedIn.

Here are some specific possibilities that you can put into action.

Look at your daily or weekly calendar 📅 of meetings and be sure to do some LinkedIn profile and company page research so you can improve each conversation or meeting. Look for things or people in common that will help catapult the opportunity. Your research will enhance the quality of every conversation.

If you are looking to add brand new connections or conversations with a specific job title in an industry or geography, use the LinkedIn search or Sales Navigator to identify possibilities. Save your search so you can come back and leverage it routinely.  Follow those key influencers or prospects and engage with content. Research. Comment. Engage. Invite. Be the helpful expert.

Expand your strategic network systematically and create a daily plan to make it happen. You would be surprised to know that most sellers or business owners have not connected with all their customers and prospects. I see this every day in my LinkedIn sales training. On top of that, complex B2B decisions typically involve over 6 decision-makers. (Plus think of all the influencers) Many sellers maintain one or two connections in those valuable accounts. Be systematic and remember your goals. Expand more deeply into the best companies you wish to work with more often.

Comment on content every day that is relevant to your opportunities and allows you to share your perspective or point of view.  Show support and gratitude. 

Consider posting strategically, but don’t put undue pressure on yourself. Dismiss the idea that you need to create original content to post every day or even every week.  Relationship building can be done in several ways using LinkedIn.

You have the big picture in mind. Continue to circle back to your big goals and the people and companies you need to get there.  You got this!

Tell me what YOU have planned for 2024 with LinkedIn ?

#linkedin #newyear #2024 #newyear2024

Thank you from Sandra Long

Post Road Consulting

Want to read my book? LinkedIn for Personal Branding: The Ultimate Guide? Here are a few Amazon links to make it easy. 🇺🇸 USA Amazon.com 🇨🇦 Canada Amazon.ca 🇬🇧 UK Amazon.co.uk 🇦🇺 Australia Amazon.com.au 🇮🇳India Amazon 🇮🇹 Italy Amazon.it