By Linda Van Valkenburgh, MS, CCMC, CJSS, CSMCS, CELDC
https://www.linkedin.com/in/lindavan/
LinkedIn is a goldmine of opportunities for those who choose to utilize the features to their best advantage.
We have already looked at several ways to manage your LinkedIn profile to work toward advancing your career – fleshing out your profile, following Network Updates, keeping an eye on LinkedIn Jobs, upgrading to a premium account, connecting with people who have viewed your profile, growing your connections, and more.
There are so many other features and tips to cover!
Continue reading to learn more:
Customize Your Public Profile URL
Make your profile easier to find by creating a customized profile URL.
By default, your profile URL has various random alphanumerical characters in it. As you can imagine, this URL is difficult for anyone to manually enter into a web search bar.
When you clean it up your profile URL, it will look more like this: http://www.linkedin.com/in/lindavan/
This personalized URL is easy to add to a resume, business card, pamphlet, or other networking, promotional item.
Use Saved Searches for Efficiency
Do you regularly find yourself frequently searching for the same types of jobs and people on LinkedIn? Many other LinkedIn users do the same thing.
Did you know that you can use LinkedIn’s built-in “Save Search” option to run the same searches again in the future? This will help you save time and stay current with update search results.
Plus, you can also receive weekly or monthly email reminders with the search results.
LinkedIn allows you to save up to three people and 10 job searches.
Get Involved In LinkedIn Groups
Find relevant industry Groups and participate in the discussions, or start your own.
There are many benefits to actively participating in Groups.
For one, you can establish your authority in the industry by sharing news updates and replying to questions that come your way.
You can also connect with other people in the group who share like interests to your own, even if they are not a first-degree connection of yours.
Note that you can email members of your group once per week to keep them engaged and updated.
Whether you are looking to build traffic to your articles or blog, create relevant industry connections, or increase your authority in the industry, the benefits of joining and being a part of groups should not be ignored.
Connect Your LinkedIn Profile to Twitter
Twitter may not be the most popular social network out there right now. That does not mean it does not hold any value.
Your LinkedIn updates can be automatically shared to your Twitter profile, helping you extend the reach of your posts.
When posting something new, simply click “Post Settings”, and “Public + Twitter” in the dropdown. This should help increase the visibility of your LinkedIn posts and draw more attention to your LinkedIn profile.
Use @mentions In Your Updates
Do you want to ensure certain people see your updates on LinkedIn?
@mentions on LinkedIn work just like they do on Facebook and Twitter, allowing you to draw people in and start a conversation with them.
This can be a great way to connect with others, if done in a respectful way. Beware of overusing or abusing this feature.
Publish Content on LinkedIn’s Publishing Platform
Do you have a blog? Are you using content to connect with an audience? Are you building your credibility and expertise through regular publishing?
LinkedIn’s publishing platform is one of the most powerful of any on the web, and can be leveraged to help you build better connections and find career opportunities.
Create an editorial calendar for yourself and begin developing content that establishes you as someone to watch in your industry.
Final Thoughts
Set goals for yourself and your LinkedIn productivity.
If you do not have a clearly defined plan and objectives for what you hope to accomplish on LinkedIn, you will never know when you have reached your goals.
Tips and tricks can help, but only if you know what you are after. Ultimately, only you know what you are trying to achieve. These tips will help you get there!
Let’s get to work!
If you have questions about your executive career search, please contact me at 203-323-9977 or [email protected].