5 LinkedIn Tips To Create a Positive Online Impression
Whether you’re social media savvy, wary, or weary, connected or overwhelmed, LinkedIn is the place to be if you’re in business. An online network for business professionals, LinkedIn can help you prove credibility, gain visibility, articulate your value, promote events, solidify connections, and simply – do business. It offers value for those who are happily employed, freelancing, job searching, or managing a business.
LinkedIn is an excellent tool to help you reinforce offline networking. Create a positive impression online with a carefully crafted and robust LinkedIn profile.
- Customize your LinkedIn profile url. On the right sidebar when viewing your profile, look for the link titled “Edit your public profile.” On the next screen, again on the right side, the top item states “Edit public profile URL.” The link below starts with http://www.LinkedIn.com and ends with some extract of your name and a collection of alphanumeric digits. By clicking on the pencil icon to edit, you can remove the extraneous digits, making your LinkedIn url usable on media such as business cards and elsewhere.
- Personalize invitations to connect. When inviting someone you’ve met to connect on LinkedIn, be thoughtful in your response to the inquiry “How do you know this person?” The choice “Other” should be used if you’re not colleagues, classmates, friends, or one of the specific choices offered. Use the dialogue box that’s provided to include a personal note which reinforces the connection. And by all means, check your spelling before clicking “Send invitation.”
- Manage your settings to stay visible to your network. LinkedIn has many levels of privacy settings to allow your profile to be primarily private, widely visible, or various levels in between. To access the settings page, click on Me at the top right of the nav bar. Select the top item, Settings and Privacy. Click on the Privacy tab to review and edit the visibility of your profile and updates.
- Update your status at least once weekly. One of the key values of LinkedIn is enhancing your online visibility. Assuming your privacy settings are relatively open, each time you update your status, answer a question, join a group, edit your profile (or many other activities), your update is fed to your network when they view their Home page. These reminders keep you top of mind to your network. To update your status, from your Home page, click the box that says “Share an article, photo or update.”
- Look at updates of your network and engage. Social media is social. While LinkedIn is a professional platform, it is nonetheless a social network and carries the expectation that members will not engage in strict self-promotion. Interact with your network. Comment on status changes, acknowledge a new photo, explore an event posted by someone in your network. The dialogue reinforces networking relationships much like in-person networking does.
If you need a hand getting your profile set up, or you learn better with one-on-one coaching, consider one of our our LinkedIn programs.
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Great article and commentary, folks.
In addition to keeping an updated LinkedIn profile simply because “you never know” when you’ll need to find a job, consider that we are all becoming digital-first. As such, we become more connected and, therefore, more resourceful. And, we get hired, promoted and advance based on how resourceful we can be. You can’t be a know-it-all, but you can be a know-where-to-get-it-all type of person – – far more valuable to your current employer than you would otherwise be if you didn’t participate on LinkedIn. Think of LinkedIn and other online social platforms as a well of expertise where we can tap in and contribute.
Cheers,
Ed
@fanfoundry
Great comment, Ed – thank you for taking the time to share your thoughts.
Just a comment if you think you don’t need to deal with Linkedin because you have a secure job. You never know when your employment situation can change, and it’s better to be proactive to be caught when you are suddenly job searching. Take it from one who’s been there.
Ben, thanks for your comment. LinkedIn is an exceptional business platform and you are right that it’s wise to have a strong presence there even if your employment situation is stable. It’s a good practice to be networking and learning whether or not you are in a secure job, because one never knows. Get active in LinkedIn groups and be sure you have recommendations on your profile, both key elements for job searchers. Best of luck .
Couple of questions. Do you recommend a setting for what people see when you have viewed their profile? Also, I have been adding people on linked in as a follow up tool and putting my “Nice meeting you” message in the invitation. My worry is that they are not always reading it. Do you think an email as well is also still necessary and do you think many of them even read the message in the invite?
I recommend that you adjust your settings to show when you have viewed someone’s profile. Likewise, if someone views yours, consider it a warm lead and use the opportunity to follow up to further the relationship, set up a networking meeting, ask the person to follow your blog or other social media accounts, etc. Regarding the invitations, rather than routinely sending an additional email, periodically review your “sent” invitations for any that haven’t been accepted and make another contact only on those, either through LinkedIn or via email. I can’t say whether most people read the message on their invitations, but I do — and I am cognizant of those who put forth more than minimal effort. I’m interested in hearing from others about personalized invitations – anyone?