There is a social media platform specifically for professionals, and it’s called LinkedIn. You’re probably familiar with it and already have an account, but you are missing big opportunities there. Learn how to maximize your potential on LinkedIn, the hub for the business community!

Who Uses LinkedIn?

LinkedIn is a place where people in different industries can connect with each other and build professional relationships. From new entrepreneurs to seasoned CEOs, you’ll see businesspeople up and down the ladder using LinkedIn to launch and support a digital marketing strategy.

Find a Job or Fill a Role

Job seekers can post resumes and showcase their portfolios and career successes for potential employers to view. Business owners and hiring managers can search for the right experts to hire as they meet the various individuals on the platform. You can see what specific areas of expertise a person has been endorsed in on LinkedIn. From there, you can send a message to tell them about your application process or explore a business partnership or other opportunity.

Showcase Skills and Establish Authority

LinkedIn is the right place to showcase your skills and establish your authority in your industry. You can easily emerge as a thought leader if you take the time to write about your experience and keep consistently active in your LinkedIn circles. Share testimonials, post case studies and list career history for the online business community to see. We all know that our connections play an important role in leveraging and helping to connect the dots. LinkedIn provides us with the opportunity to create connections where we otherwise would never have had the chance. You can also create and manage a business page specifically for information about your company.

What Makes LinkedIn Different from Other Social Media Platforms?

LinkedIn is the best social media platform for conducting in-depth research about a company, business, or individual you want to work with. This holds true whether you are a prospective employer, employee, agent, or client.

You’ll get what you came for

Because LinkedIn networkers post information-rich descriptions about themselves and their careers, you can sort through to determine who’s the real deal and who is blowing some hot air. Past posts will give you a window as to their professional tone and focus. This is the stuff you won’t likely find on Facebook, and other personal feeds. Since the platform is strictly focused on business, LinkedIn feeds and groups are rich with valuable content posted by the world changers and serious business people. It isn’t cluttered up with loads of irrelevant information.

Growing your pool of connections takes work

When you’re new to LinkedIn, you might find it hard to get into the groove right away. You can add your friends and colleagues by email address and searching names, but you won’t get a lot of action from strangers until you prove that you know what you’re talking about. Finding, requesting, and agreeing to connections isn’t as simple on LinkedIn as it is on other social media channels. With LinkedIn, you have to wait for your present connections to “introduce” you to their own connections, so the process can take a while if you’re starting with only a few friends. Once you hit 500 connections, you’re dubbed an all-star and your profile will get more exposure.

If you find LinkedIn to be confusing or you’re hesitant about diving in, there are plenty of resources to walk you through the whole process and give you great tips. Check out the helpful advice in LinkedIn for Dummies if you really want to be strategic in your approach to using LinkedIn.

Use LinkedIn to Support Your Business

Tap into the Database

Think of the profile pages on LinkedIn as an unlimited Yellow Pages book, where you have an infinite number of pages to present your business to the public and develop flourishing, professional relationships. You should be spending a few hours each week going through the profiles in your industry, and connecting with people in the most relevant, active groups.

Fill in your profile heavily

At a glance, you can always tell who invested time in building up their profiles, as opposed to those who clicked through the prompts just to finish creating an account. Take the time to really fill in your profile and answer all of the pop-up questions that you’ll see at the top of your screen. Extensive and informative is the name of the game on LinkedIn, and a full page of information about you and your business will give you more credibility online. The more good information you have on your LinkedIn, the more convincing your content will be.

Free Advertising

Imagine if someone offered you access to a billboard for free, with unrestricted space and no limits to what you could display. You could feature quality photos from your media library, testimonials, videos, your resume and links to your other online resources. With LinkedIn, you can advertise in a way that builds trust, and target your customer easily using their demographical information.

It’s a Soapbox

You can build your a reputation on LinkedIn. From testimonials, awards, recommendations, and past career history, you can show off your professional knowledge and also create awareness for issues that are most important in your corner of the business world.

Be Consistent

Maintain a solid online presence on LinkedIn by frequently posting and sharing content that is credible, valuable, and informative. Keep leads warm by sending messages to check in with people you’ve been talking to. Sign on to scan the groups and see what types of discussions are happening so you can contribute in a useful way.

Prioritize your time spent on social media

LinkedIn is the one that matters. If you’re not using this platform to propel yourself as an expert and build professional relationships, you are missing out. You’d better join the “in” crowd soon!