Building your credibility on LinkedIn
LinkedIn works a bit like Google for people, so the more information you put on your profile the more chance you have of appearing in someone’s search results. It also allows you to seek and give recommendations. So actively ask customers and contacts to endorse you for your skills on LinkedIn, because the more people you have saying you are great then the less you need to say it yourself. And although LinkedIn allows you to list your past employment and all the positions you have held, it’s not your CV. You can be selective about what you show. If that bar job you had at university has no relevance to what you are doing now, then leave it off. If you are a volunteer fundraiser for your local animal charity in your spare time however, then there’s a space to add that in.
Once you are connected with someone then LinkedIn works in a very similar way to Facebook. You will see a newsfeed of updates from the people you are linked with, meaning that you can build your credibility with the people you have connected to. It only takes a short while of you posting regularly on a topic for someone to start noting that you are an expert on it. You want to get the story of your business in front of people who might want to invest in you, or stock your products, or use you in their business? This is the place to do it. You can do this in a similar way to your social media platforms, but remember you are talking to people at their desks, not on their sofas. But don’t think that just because you have your virtual suit and tie on you can’t still use videos and eye-catching images. Again, being unremarkable and dull is the enemy of any successful business.
There are also a few other unique ways you can use LinkedIn. The first is LinkedIn groups. These are very similar to the groups you find on Facebook but are made up from executives and business professionals talking, mainly, business. You will find groups specifically relating to your industry and it’s worth getting known in them and treating them like networking opportunities. As with real life networking, don’t walk in with an iron-handshake and start trying to sell to everyone in the room; you’ll soon find no-one wants to engage with you. Instead, see what people are talking about and start out by being helpful. You can get everything you want by helping others get what they want first. Offer advice without selling your business and wait for the opportunities to come up – because they will.
Something else that makes LinkedIn stand out is the kinds of posts you can share. On social media sites you are usually limited to standard text posts that might include a picture or even a video. On LinkedIn you can share documents as a post, and upload them to your profile also. This means that if you have a presentation, or pitch-deck, or price list then you can share it like a post so it appears in people’s feeds – or make this part of what people see when they view your profile. You can also share longer articles on LinkedIn, up to tens of thousands of words if you wish, using combinations of text, images and media just like you would create a blog post. If you need to get more technical when you sell your product, or if you are a consultant and want to share your ideas in a more in-depth format with your connections, then this might make up an important part of your content strategy. You can take your long-form content that you have already written elsewhere and share it directly on the platform to put it under the noses of your contacts.
