Your role on LinkedIn

Most people I talk to are unsure about what they should be doing on LinkedIn. They believe LinkedIn is only for certain people in their company, or when they need to make a career change.

Things I hear all the time:

I'm not in sales or marketing, and I'm not looking for a new job.

or

Marketing takes care of social media for our company.

Believe it or not, EVERYONE has a role to play, and a positive contribution to make, on LinkedIn.

Even you.

Let's explore the possibilities of how you can contribute on LinkedIn, by actively participating.

If you're a business leader:

(Owner, founder, MD, CEO, head of department etc.)

You are very much the face of the business, and represent not only your company, but yourself in your industry.

Your employees look up to you and follow your example.

If you're not active on LinkedIn, you're sending a message to everyone else in your organization that you don't believe using LinkedIn is important.

Be more of a #socialCEO

What can and should you do?

• Make sure your profile is optimized so that you make the best possible first impression for yourself as a professional, and for your business.
• Regularly share relevant posts, in your own words, that your followers will find valuable.
• Engage with the posts on your company page and with the posts shared by your employees. This shows them that you acknowledge what they're doing.
• Comment on other people's (industry-related) posts. You'll make yourself more visible in your industry, and to people not yet in your connected network.

If you're in sales / marketing:

You're customer-facing and influence people who spend money with your business. You need to be a top advocate for your company.

You should be using your profile to build trust and educate people about your business and its products and services.

You should also be making yourself stand out in your industry as the go-to person for whatever it is that you sell.

What can and should you do?

• Have a rockstar-level LinkedIn profile. Stand out from the crowd.
• Build relationships with customers, prospects and partners.
• Demonstrate knowledge and expertise through story-telling (Customer case studies, for example)
• Support your colleagues by commenting on their posts and start conversations in your own posts.
• Slide into the DM's and have conversations with all relevant people you encounter on LinkedIn.

You're an internal contributor / technical / admin.

While your job is not sales, marketing or communications, you still hold information and knowledge that 99% of other people on LinkedIn don't know.

Perhaps you're a technical expert, or someone who coordinates your team's activities. You are a vital part of the process!

What can and should you do?

• Have an optimized and on-brand LinkedIn profile - this allows you to be a super advocate for your company.
• Be a team player. Support your leaders and sales teams by commenting on their LinkedIn posts.
• Share stories about your work-life and what it's like to be an employee of your company. This helps build your company's "employer brand".

Regardless of who you are, or the job you're hired to do, you can make an extremely valuable contribution via your LinkedIn profile and activity.

By being active, you're giving your company valuable brand exposure.

You're also making yourself more visible and building your own personal brand. This precedes you and will help when you need support from your network at some point in time (for example if you're laid off and need to find a new job).

LinkedIn is for everyone, and can benefit everyone.

If you're not sure where to start, here are 2 free resources for you - and please share them with your team.

The LinkedIn Cookbook - Recipes for a better LinkedIn profile.

The LinkedIn Quick-start guide - Go from zero to hero on LinkedIn.

If you need to get your team shooting at the same set of goalposts and off to a flying start, get in touch and let's chat about a structured training and coaching program for them.

Do you have any reasons NOT to participate on LinkedIn?