Looking to make some new business connections and improve your professional presence? Start by evaluating your goals, then use these six strategies and tips to leverage LinkedIn to help you accomplish them.
LinkedIn can help you increase the credibility, visibility and prominence of your personal and company brand. The key ingredient is thought-provoking, unique content that helps your audience gain knowledge about a topic you specialize in, or that gives them insight into your accomplishments. You can develop and share this type of content yourself or pass along information you find from other sources. The most important thing is to make sure what you share is relevant to your audience.
LinkedIn is the perfect platform for helping professionals build their reputation and visibility. It’s also a great place to interact with like-minded people, including your prospects, in groups and through InMails or by commenting on others’ posts. All these activities can help you further your credibility and showcase your expertise.
No matter what type of business you’re in, creating content that positions you as a thought leader, or your company as an expert resource, is fundamental to success. Not sure what to write? Start by answering the most frequently asked questions you receive from prospects and customers. If you need to get comfortable sharing your thoughts, start by sharing content created by others (with appropriate credit, of course). This is called content curation. See what resonates most with your target audience, then use these insights to guide your own content creation.
LinkedIn is absolutely essential for finding new job opportunities and additional talent if you’re in a position to hire. You can search companies you may be interested in working with, look for job opportunities, use LinkedIn Talent resources, and more to make sure you have the right career opportunities and the right team members.
Use the LinkedIn search function to help you identify and contact potential partners. You may see someone who interacts with your posts, or you could target a complementary business, find their contact person’s information via LinkedIn and then reach out to set up a meeting. If you have a Premium account, you can also send InMails to potential partners you haven’t yet met.
As mentioned above, LinkedIn’s search function can take your usage of the platform to a whole new level. Explore groups based on keywords, articles, posts and people to get a pulse on your current professional interests or to explore new trends and opportunities. Once you start interacting this way on a regular basis, it’s likely LinkedIn will become a go-to resource for you.
Make it a regular habit to use these strategies, which will help you maximize your presence and connections on LinkedIn. As the most popular and most-used business connection platform in the world, LinkedIn has much to offer at low or no cost to you. The only question left is: When will you begin using LinkedIn to build your business?