LinkedIn is the world’s largest professional networking platform with over 800 million members. It allows professionals to connect with each other, find job opportunities, showcase their expertise, and build their personal brand. Using LinkedIn effectively can help advance one’s career and open doors to new opportunities. Here is a summary of key things to know about networking on LinkedIn:
Building your network
The foundation of LinkedIn is growing your network of connections. This allows you to connect with professionals in your industry, former colleagues, recruiters, potential clients, and more. Strategies for expanding your network include:
- Connecting with everyone you know professionally offline. Don’t just connect with people you interact with regularly. Reach out to past colleagues, supervisors, clients, vendors, alumni from your university, and more.
- Joining relevant LinkedIn Groups related to your industry or interests. Engage in discussions and connect with active members.
- Following companies you are interested in or have worked for. Stay up to date on their updates and job postings.
- Using the “People You May Know” section. LinkedIn suggests connections based on your profile, network, and mutual connections.
- Searching for profiles using keywords relevant to your interests and profession. Send connection requests to those you would like to connect with.
Aim to make your network as diverse and expansive as possible. The broader your reach, the more opportunities you can uncover.
Engaging with your connections
It’s not enough to just connect with people on LinkedIn. You need to engage with your connections by interacting with their content. Ways to do this include:
- Commenting on posts and articles shared by your connections. This helps stay top of mind.
- Liking and resharing posts from connections to your own network. This exposes their content to new audiences.
- Endorsing connections for skills they have listed on their profile.
- Following companies and influencers in your industry. Stay up to date on the latest content.
- Congratulating connections on work anniversaries, promotions, new jobs, etc. Recognize their wins and milestones.
Being an active participant in your network establishes you as a valuable connection vs. just a contact. It leads to more meaningful interactions that can ultimately create opportunities.
Joining LinkedIn Groups
LinkedIn Groups provide the ability to connect with professionals based on shared interests, affiliations, and industries. It allows you to engage in specific niche communities. Reasons to join Groups include:
- Gaining industry insights through discussing common challenges and goals.
- Establishing yourself as a thought leader by sharing content and perspectives.
- Finding and providing help and advice by tapping into the Group’s expertise.
- Collaborating on projects or initiatives with Group members.
- Uncovering job opportunities and potential clients or partners.
- Expanding your overall network by connecting with active Group participants.
Choose Groups strategically based on your professional objectives and participate actively once you join. Offer value to the Group through your contributions.
Growing your following
Building up your personal brand and following on LinkedIn can significantly expand your professional reach. Ways to grow your following include:
- Adding rich media content like images, videos, and presentations to your profile and posts.
- Publishing long-form posts and articles to establish thought leadership.
- Using relevant hashtags so your content becomes searchable.
- Participating consistently in discussions and Groups.
- Leveraging your connections to expand your following. Ask them to like, comment on, and share your content.
- Staying active by constantly posting valuable updates, insights, and resources.
- Promoting your LinkedIn profile and content on other social channels.
The more value you share, the quicker your follower count will rise. Focus on quality over quantity when publishing content.
Searching Jobs
LinkedIn’s massive job board is one of the platform’s biggest assets. With over 20 million job listings, it has become a go-to resource for job seekers. Benefits of searching for jobs on LinkedIn include:
- Quality postings. Jobs are typically posted by legitimate recruiters and hiring managers, not third-party agencies.
- Targeted search. You can search for jobs by title, company, location, date posted, and other filters.
- Apply with existing profile. You can submit your LinkedIn profile in one click when applying to jobs.
- Recruiter visibility. Recruiters can find and contact you about appropriate openings.
- Company insights. Research a company’s culture, employees, products, and news before applying there.
- Recommendations. See if someone in your network can recommend you to a hiring manager.
Set up job alerts so you are notified of new opportunities that match your search parameters. Turn on the “Open to Work” setting as well so recruiters know you are seeking new roles.
Messaging connections
Instead of emailing back and forth, LinkedIn has a built-in messaging system that makes it easy to communicate 1:1 or with groups. Reasons to use LinkedIn messaging include:
- Start conversations and strengthen relationships with your network.
- Follow up after meeting someone at an event or conference.
- Send and receive professional updates like new jobs or projects.
- Discuss and collaborate on Groups you have joined.
- Communicate privately with team members if you have a Company page.
- Reach out to connections to discover potential jobs or opportunities.
LinkedIn messaging keeps your professional conversations organized in one place. Just be mindful of only messaging people who you already have existing relationships with.
Showcasing your experience
Your LinkedIn profile provides a place to demonstrate your background, skills, accomplishments and contributions. Make sure it accurately reflects your experience by:
- Crafting a compelling, keyword-rich headline.
- Writing a professional summary that hooks people in.
- Outlining your full work history including descriptions and achievements.
- Adding multimedia like photos, videos, Slideshares and more.
- Including all relevant skills to showcase your expertise.
- Getting colleagues to provide recommendations and endorsements.
- Publishing long-form posts to give insights into your thinking.
Your profile is often the first impression you make on new connections. Put thought into crafting how you present yourself.
Tracking profile views
One underutilized LinkedIn metric is tracking who is viewing your profile. You can do this by:
- Going to your profile settings.
- Clicking “Turn on visitor viewing”.
- Checking who has viewed your profile under account analytics.
Tracking profile views allows you to see who is evaluating you. It could be recruiters looking to hire, or professionals interested in connecting. Follow up with anyone promising to nurture those relationships.
Benefits of a premium account
While having a free account is sufficient, upgrading to a premium paid level unlocks additional beneficial features. These include:
- Seeing full profiles of everyone who has viewed yours.
- Knowing how you rank for profile searches compared to others.
- Sending InMail messages directly to anyone, even if you’re not connected.
- Seeing more robust analytics on your profile, content, and network.
- Posting longer format content and videos to showcase expertise.
- Accessing preset messages for easily reaching out to new connections.
For job seekers and business professionals actively leveraging LinkedIn, a premium account can be worth the cost.
Do’s and don’ts
Here are some final best practices when using LinkedIn to network and build connections:
DO:
- Make your profile 100% complete with detail, rich media, and keywords.
- Engage consistently with your network by liking, commenting, and sharing.
- Publish new, original content as well as share others’ posts.
- Join Groups related to your industry and interests; participate actively.
- Follow companies you want to work for or do business with.
DON’T:
- Connect randomly with people you have no relationship with.
- Send mass generic connection requests or InMail messages.
- Spam Groups or discussions with off-topic or promotional posts.
- Use automated bots or services to boost followers or content sharing.
- Over-sell yourself. Focus on relationship building.
Conclusion
When used strategically, LinkedIn provides a tremendous platform for networking and expanding your professional opportunities. Build an impactful personal brand, establish valuable connections, engage meaningfully, and continuously add value. With its unmatched reach, leveraging LinkedIn can take your career to new heights.