How to get more out of LinkedIn?

When I first started looking for a job I signed up for LinkedIn without even knowing what is it used for, until recently I understood why LinkedIn is important, how it can be of use, and the right way to use it.

Why Linkedin?

Around 660 million people use Linkedin but about a fraction of that population knows the importance of LinkedIn. Now before you start questioning yourself I would say it's alright.

Okay so Why Linkedin?

Three reasons:

1. Easy to use

Anybody and everybody can use Linkedin without having to understand algorithms or high technical knowledge.

2. Gives you or your business better reach

Linkedin is not like any other social media platform Like Facebook or Instagram but its a more sophisticated way of connecting with like-minded people and organizations or parties who are in the same field as you are no matter which part of the world they are in.

3. Best place to showcase your skills

Now we all have been through the frustrating journey of finding jobs or clients for your business, Right? But imagine you can put your resume in one place and the concerned parties come to look at them. At least 1% of them will be interested and that's what we are looking for.

How to make the best use of Linkedin?

Now that we have understood the why let's jump into what you do to supercharge your Linkedin profile.

1. Make your profile more appealing

Yes, the first thing you gotta do is it to make it presentable and it's very easy. First of all, change your profile picture to show that you are a professional so change it with a picture that best showcases your professional personality.

The next thing to do is to change that blue cover picture that LinkedIn has gifted you, the main reason to change it because it can speak a million things about you before the person looks into your profile.

We all know pictures speak better than words.

You can design your own cover and put it on Linkedin for better conversion. I used Canva Pro for that so no need to pay huge fees to designers.

NOTE: You don't have to purchase the pro version to design this, the free version is enough.

2. Understand your audience

What we basically do is start sending connections on Linkedin randomly. First, you have to understand who your target audience is, then start researching people who are the influencers in your field and start sending connections to the influencers who have above average engagement and also send connections to your close friends ( this is very important at the initial stage we will discuss it further). This will give you a greater outreach when you comment on influencer's posts or when they like your posts.

Note: LinkedIn allows only 3k connection requests.

So be careful of who you send the connection request to.

How to send a connection? So now you might be thinking its not rocket science. Of course, it not but sending a request without a good connection message is not entertained by experienced people so write a stunning message before sending a request.

3. Optimize your profile according to your audience

Now when we go to a profile on Instagram what do we look at the pictures and then we read their Bio, similarly in LinkedIn recruiters and customers start to scroll down to understand you.

Write a pretty cool bio for this you can stalk the people you just have sent a connection to and later talk to your family, friends, or colleagues to better describe your personality then put it in Bio. It's very important to carry your personality throughout the profile so don't just copy someone’s profile.

Perfect now your profiles tell exactly who you are, now start adding all the experience and skills you have.

4. Using Linkedin features to appear in search

Now that we have our profile ready, its time we use all the available features of LinkedIn to maximize the width of your audience.

Use endorsements to rank better in LinkedIn search, so when I send keeping your friends as the connection is important is because of endorsements. You can ask your friends to endorse for the skills you have added what it does is when someone search for the skill you are endorsed for you appear in the search.

Request your peers, colleagues, or other business partners to write recommendations on your profile which generates a trust factor when someone glances at your profile.

Use the featured section to put out your best work and if you are a student use the section to showcase your resume and better than put a video resume Link in that.

That's how you effectively make use of LinkedIn.

It doesn't matter if you are a student, entrepreneur, job seeker, etc etc.. All you got to do is follow these simple steps and you can easily take your reach up a notch and also close more clients.

Now it's your turn to change the game of Linkedin.