How can you be heard on LinkedIn? Think about your voice and how visible you are. But first, your profile has to be built out and complete. Optimize the profile section and make sure your professional story is being told to your network. If your profile isn’t ready and optimized, read 10 Tips to Personalize Your Profile and get to it! Once your professional presence on LinkedIn mirrors your offline professional reputation, the next step is to begin thinking about your voice.
In this post we’ll explore a few ways that you can get your name, your picture and your company brand in front of more eyeballs. Is your business hiring? Then this post is for you, too.
Share interesting information with you network. There are various ways to do this and guess what? You can kill four birds with one stone. Yep, four. When you read an article, look for the social share buttons that allow you to post the article to multiple social media networks.
When you click the LinkedIn share button, you will then see three ways you can post to your LinkedIn network and even to your Twitter account, too:
Share an update. It’s important to make a comment on the information you’re sharing with your network for a couple of reasons: 1) To show that you read the article and 2) To point out a specific point about the article that you found particularly interesting. I often ask a question after my comment to begin dialogue with my network. Notice in this first option that you can also mention a connection’s name or company name in your update. This is a great way to give back to your network and give them a shout out!
Post to groups. Many professionals are finding business opportunities within LinkedIn Groups. People are talking within them and you should, too. You can only select Groups for which you are a member, that way they auto populate when you begin typing in the Group name. It may appear that you can post within multiple Groups, but LinkedIn will only a post to one Group at a time.
Send to individuals. Unlike posting to Groups where you have to be a member and can only post to one Group at a time, when you click this option, you can share the article with anyone, whether you are connected to them or not. If you are connected, begin typing their name and their profile will auto populate in the “To” field. If you are not connected or the person is not on LinkedIn, you can type in an email address and the person will receive your message and article link. Remember to always personalize your message here by telling the recipient why they would find the article valuable.
Share with your Twitter network. Connect your Twitter account with LinkedIn and you can share this article with your followers. Remember you only get 140 characters, so make your update concise and to the point so that none of your tweet gets cut off.
Post something by mistake? That’s okay. LinkedIn gives you ways to manage those “oops” posts. Keep in mind that not all posts are created equal, so you can choose to uncheck any of those boxes. An article you find might not be relevant to all four channels, but knowing the capability is there can help you select information that does pertain to all of those areas.
Talk about efficient, right? With the click of a button you can share information in multiple places at one time. Remember LinkedIn’s corporate mission is to “Connect the world’s professionals to make them more productive and successful.” Share content to help create your voice on LinkedIn.
Have any other ideas for creating your unique voice on LinkedIn? Let me know in the comments.
