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Five Easy Tips To Boost Your LinkedIn Personal Page

LinkedIn is a useful platform to network, communicate, grow your business, educate yourself, and radically impact your industry.


Getting your LinkedIn personal page active and up-to-date isn’t hard. It just takes a little time and proven tactics.

Did you know LinkedIn has over 875 million members across 200 countries worldwide? With over 58 million companies listed, 17 million thought leaders, and 10 million C-suite executives on the platform, it’s essential for anyone invested in their career to establish a strong presence on LinkedIn, too.

 

LinkedIn is more than a recruitment hub

We’re all experiencing The Great Reshuffle: Companies are reconsidering their work models, corporate values, and overall work environment, and employees are rethinking how and why they work. Now, people are searching for opportunities that best meet their need for flexibility and inclusiveness as well as for their values and principles.

Dina Mostovaya is a business consultant and the founder of Mindset Consulting.
Photo: Dina Mostovaya, founder of Mindset Consulting | Courtesy Photo

LinkedIn is no longer “just” a recruitment platform. It’s a robust, professional network where people can go to educate and inform themselves while learning more about what’s going on in their industry. More than ever, people are coming to LinkedIn to network, communicate, grow their businesses, educate themselves, and learn how to make a radical impact on their industry, so it’s the perfect time to start making the most of your account. Here are my five easy hacks to do that and stand out among your peers.

 

1. Make the most of your profile

First, customize your URL. It looks better, and it’s easier to remember. It should look like this: linkedin.com/in/yourname.

Set your avatar to the same photo across all social networks, with your face occupying most of the frame. This visual continuity helps with easy recognition. Next, use five relevant hashtags to describe your professional activity.

Craft the “About” section to share your specific story. Remember that people visiting your profile will only see what you tell them, so make sure that every aspect of that is telling the unified legend of who you are and why you’re passionate about what you do.

Under the “Experience” section, take the time to show your entire career journey from where you started to where you are now, in chronological order. People love seeing the growth and the path you took to reach your current position. The same goes for education; include everything relevant from your university days onward.

 

2. Maximize your content

LinkedIn has algorithms that determine how popular certain content is. The majority of your posts should be informative, educational, or analytical and focused on your industry. However, it’s okay to mix in some fun, casual posts as well, like polls, kudos, or short, entertaining clips.
The timing of your posts is essential for getting the best possible reach. A good rule for best posting times is sharing between 9 a.m. and 11 a.m. local time Tuesday-Thursday. Entertaining posts are best when published on Fridays.

It’s best to make posts that include a relevant image or video clip rather than just a “wall of text.” In fact, you can even post a link with just a simple opinion or question attached to spark conversation. Keep your text posts within the 300-500 word range, and be sure to respond to comments quickly to further discussion and interaction.

“Remember the ‘golden hour’ rule: If your post does well within the first hour (when the network measures initial engagement), LinkedIn’s algorithm deems it worthy of moving on to other people’s feeds.”

Remember the “golden hour” rule: If your post does well within the first hour (when the network measures initial engagement), LinkedIn’s algorithm deems it worthy of moving on to other people’s feeds. Posts that perform well within the first hour tend to do well all day, week, or month. So, don’t hesitate to ask your friends for more interaction. Another strategy is to boost the posts you’ve shared so that they get a wider reach. The boost feature can be used for objectives like increasing engagement, promoting events, or driving website traffic to bring more eyes to your content.

 

3. Expand your network

Adding more people to your network means a broader audience for your posts, and more people can find you. Expanding your network also puts your account in recommendations more often and promotes it in search results.

Adding these people as connections is a good idea:

  • Current or former colleagues
  • CEOs of companies that interest you
  • Inspirational figures
  • People you’ve met at an event within 24 hours
  • Former and potential customers
  • LinkedIn Open Networkers (LIONs) – people with 10,000 or more connections who welcome anyone to connect with them

 

4. Engage with your connections

Take some time to browse through your feed and interact with the posts your connections are making. When you like and comment on your connections’ most recent activity, it not only spurs others to engage with you, but it also improves your overall visibility.

In many cases, thoughtful interaction with others will help expand your network. You can join relevant groups to engage with other professionals in the same or similar field. This gives you a space to share common experiences, and it also opens up possibilities for future clients or business partners. I have also noticed that, with the best-developed LinkedIn profiles, the person tags other people in almost every post. This generates more activity because the tagged user will come by and like or comment on the post, spurring engagement from others.

 

5. Provide no fewer than five recommendations

LinkedIn recommendations are vital and have become more meaningful than written ones. They provide credibility, authenticity, and a personal touch that signals you’re a real person, not a bot. Recommendations are also a kind of easily traceable “social proof” of your professional capabilities. They show on the accounts of both the giver and receiver, but they can only be given by first-degree connections, which makes them more meaningful.

 

Dina Mostovaya is a business consultant and the founder of Mindset Consulting. For 15 years, she has been helping technology companies and startups develop and implement strategic communications in the U.S. and across Europe. Dina is a member of the Global Women in PR Association and the TEDxWaterStreet’s Advisory Board, and a Judge of The International Business Awards 2022 by Stevie Awards. She was named the Best Woman in PR by the international Davos Communications Awards 2022. In 2020, she was shortlisted for the Impact Award by GWPR.

 

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