How to get the best out of Linkedin

With around 750 million users, Linkedin is the professional social network par excellence. Its expansion during the last years has been exponential. It offers many opportunities in the work sector, but many people don’t know how to get the best out of Linkedin. Do you want to know some of the best tips to not just be a part of the community, but to also seize its options to the fullest?

Tips to squeeze Linkedin

• Update your profile. If you get a new job, study a formation course or change your sector or location, you should include that data in your profile. Dedicating time to care for details will make it more complete, and, at the same time, it will make easier for you to be found by people you might be interested in. By the way, your profile pictures are also crucial. They are your first chance to give a good impression. So they have to look professional. As a general advice, think of it this way. The picture you would normally use for your Instagram profile may not be the best one for Linkedin.
• Be proactive. This is a social network. You have to interact in order to be visible. Publish content you and your contacts find interesting, share what gets your attention (with a comment when you do it), comment other people’s posts… In essence, don’t be a passive user of Linkedin.
• Quality before quantity. Proactivity is important, but it has to go together with quality. Not everything is publishable; at the same time. not every profile is going to be a good contact for you. At the end of the day, it’s better to have 300 contacts of your sector than 3000 of other fields and who you don’t have any professional interest in contacting with.
• It’s a meeting point, not a selling one. At least, that’s the goal. Linkedin is a place where you will find people in your sector, potential clients, profiles that can inspire you… You could even find a new job. All of those possibilities share a common goal: to serve as the place where many professional profiles come together, and they can connect and contact. If your only objective is to use it as a platform where you can sell, self promote and get a lot of clicks, you will be missing a lot of what this tool is all about. Besides, you can become annoying or be seen as nothing but an advertiser.
• Make others visible. We all have coworkers, bosses, friends… You have the power to make them visible for your contacts. As well as to do so with your company updates or news. As it happens with any social relationship, Linkedin also works based on recognition.

Following this tips, as well as your own intuition, you will get the best out of your Linkedin experience. You will connect with dozens of profiles you are interested in… And much more. If you want more training advice, visit our blog.