In a world where there’s ever-increasing competition for that job you want, being noticed is super important. One of the best ways to get noticed is through an impressive LinkedIn profile. Read our tips on how to grow your network and get noticed by the people who matter.
1. Use groups to expand your network
Being a member of a group gives you permission to contact other members of the same group, without having to upgrade to a Premium account to do so. The trick is to join groups that your current connections are not members of. This will instantly expand your networking opportunities.
Don’t limit the number of groups you join either but make sure that they are relevant to your strengths and skills. By joining groups related to your expertise and industry, when others look at your profile, your group membership will reinforce who you are and the image you want to portray.
2. Take control of your newsfeed
Do you write blogs or news articles? Promote your content by sharing it in your newsfeed by posting updates. This will amplify the reach of your content. Found an interesting article? Share it with your contacts. Posting content on your newsfeed that is closely related to your skills, strengths and expertise will reinforce those attributes in the eyes of your contacts.
3. Mention contacts and companies in your status updates
As with Facebook or Twitter, you can tag or mention other users and companies in your status updates. This is a great way of getting noticed, as whoever is mentioned will be alerted to the fact you have written about them. All you need to do is include the @ symbol immediately followed by the user’s/company’s name in your status update.
4. Publicise your profile
Include the URL of your LinkedIn profile in all your marketing material and communications; from the signature in your email address to your website, and your business cards. This will give the people you meet plenty of opportunities to connect with you easily.
5. Find new connections and keep in touch with your current ones
Central to your LinkedIn strategy should be growing and strengthening your network. LinkedIn offers a vast array of tools to help you with this, most of which are located in the ‘Connections’ tab in the top navigation bar. This includes importing contacts from your email accounts, and the ability to stay in touch with existing contacts through a central messaging tool, found by selecting ‘keep in touch’, in the ‘connections’ drop-down menu. This feature helps you keep track of your communications, it notifies you when contacts in your network change jobs, have birthdays, or when you haven’t been in contact with them in a while.
6. Break down the barrier
Found new connections by using our tip above? Aim to get at least 500. That magic 500+ in your profile is guaranteed to make an impact on those who view your profile.
7. Don’t hide
LinkedIn gives you the ability to see whether another user has viewed your profile. But this only works if you allow others to see who you are too. The premise is simple: if you don’t want to be identified when you browse other people’s profiles, nobody will be able to see yours either. Unless you’re on a secret mission you should always check the option ‘your name and headline’ in your account’s settings.
8. Check who’s viewed your profile regularly
You never know who’s been checking your profile, but it might well be someone who you might want to connect with, so make sure you navigate to this section in your profile regularly, which can be found on the right of your main profile page.
LinkedIn is a great place to connect with like-minded individuals and industry influencers, and you can find plenty of Enterprise staff on there with great profiles. Apply for one of our roles in your city today and you could meet them in person.
