Do you have a LinkedIn profile? The odds are you do. Next question — when was the last time you updated your profile? Or nurtured people in your community? Or analyzed the data surrounding the people in your industry?
That’s the problem with LinkedIn — many people think of it as a set-it-and-forget-it platform. The truth is, LinkedIn is like most other social media platforms in that the more you put in it the more you get out of it.
With that in mind, let’s take a look at a variety of ways you can take LinkedIn to the next level. Each of the tips and techniques below builds upon the others. In other words, you’ll get more bang for your buck if you do each of these things in tandem rather than in a silo.
Ready to dive in? Here goes.
Step #1: Add Something New to Your Profile at Least Once a Month. By adding new things to your LinkedIn profile on a monthly basis, you do two things. First, updating your Profile forces you to sort through and categorize which of your experiences are the most important. This focuses your attention on the things that will help you later in your career.
As a simple example, let’s say part of your training involved learning how to run a large, complex copier machine as well as training on how to update a profit & loss spreadsheet for your division. Of course, the most important of those two training exercises is learning how to update the profit & loss spreadsheet for your division, so you’ll want to add something about that to your Profile. By doing so, you’re keeping track of the skills you’re learning and focusing your mind on things that can be used later in your career.
The second thing you’ll accomplish when you update your Profile is that it will keep your connections up-to-speed on the progress you’re making in your job. When you make changes to your Profile, your connections are notified that you’ve made updates. By doing this on a regular basis, you’re staying on people’s radar screens. Better still, you’re keeping future employers informed of all the new things you’re learning at your job.
It may seem as though keeping people updated about your career isn’t all that important. And the truth is, in most cases, the people who see your update have a lot of other things on their mind, so they won’t catch every last update.
But every time you catch someone’s eye, a little neural connection is stored in their brain. A year or two from now, that person may not remember the specifics of each and every update, but they’ll have an overall impression of you that you’re a bright, up-and-coming professional with a lot of potential. And that’s a great impression to leave on somebody’s mind.
Step #2: Nurture Your Community. Your community includes a broad range of people you’re connected to on LinkedIn. Some of those connections are people who are simply included in your contacts database, which is fine, and you’ll want to continuously reach out to them. But your larger community involves the Groups and associations you’re part of through LinkedIn. These can include Industry Groups, Alumni Groups and Interest Groups.
In your Interest sub-menu, you’ll see a link to Groups, which is where you can sign up to follow industry groups (like the 60 Second Marketer Group). As with all things involving LinkedIn, it’s more about the quality of your Groups rather than the quantity of your Groups, so resist the temptation to continuously add new Groups to your list. It’s better to stay focused on a handful of Groups and provide real value to those Groups than to be a member of dozens of Groups and not actively participate in them.
All that said, once you’ve landed your new job, it’s perfectly alright to go into your Groups and ask for advice or input on career questions. That’s one of the many benefits of Groups – they put you in touch with people who can provide you guidance on issues or situations that they’ve confronted in the past.
It’s important to remember, however, that everything you say on LinkedIn (or any other social network) is public information, so don’t include anything that a) is proprietary to your company or your client’s companies, or b) you wouldn’t want your grandmother to read.
If you’re even remotely on the fence about whether it’s appropriate to mention something on a Group, err on the side of caution and don’t do it. A simple phrase to keep in mind is, “When in doubt, keep it out.” That’ll prevent you from saying anything you’ll regret in the future.
Step #3: Analyze the Data. One of the greatest benefits of LinkedIn is that you can draw insights from the data that’s available to you inside the platform. LinkedIn has more than 175 million members whose journeys through college, graduate school, early career, mid career and late career can be seen on LinkedIn. On a micro basis, you can review the Profiles of people whose careers you want to emulate. By studying their career paths, you can see what has worked for them and learn from their mistakes.
But LinkedIn isn’t just for viewing career paths on a micro basis – you can view them on a macro basis as well. There is no other organization that tracks large scale data sets about career outcomes the way LinkedIn does, so it’s a great way to see what’s working and what’s not working in people’s careers.
The tool used to track these macro trends is the Alumni Tool. You’ll find the Alumni Tool in various places throughout LinkedIn, but the easiest way to access it is to go to your Network menu and drag down to the sub-menu item that says Find Alumni. There, you’ll see where your fellow alumni live, where they work and what they do. Below that information, you’ll see the connections you have to people who attended your university.
You’ll come across a lot of data in the Alumni Tool, but data is just data unless you derive insights from it. So be sure to explore the Alumni Tool with some veracity. Find out what people who attended your school ended up doing with their careers. Compare the results of your school to other schools by clicking the change school link at the top of the page. You can even add filters by clicking the search function at the bottom of each section – adding filters lets you sort through the data with a fine toothcomb to see commonalities or insights that will help you as you choose the next steps for your career.
The most important thing about sorting through the data is to find insights that you can apply to your own choices. If you’re thinking of going back to graduate school, the Alumni Tool is a great place to see what kinds of jobs people landed after studying what you’re thinking about studying. It can also be used to explore whether people who worked at Company A during their early career worked at top companies later in their lives.
In the end, the Alumni Tool is like having a crystal ball that can show you how your life may play out if you go down one path vs. another path. And that’s a great tool to have.
Step #4: Ask for Recommendations. A recommendation is a vote of confidence from your connections. To get a recommendation, simply go to your Profile and go to the bottom of the page where you’ll find the Recommendations link. There, you’ll see a page with a link that says, “Ask to be recommended.” Just choose what skill or expertise you want to be recommended for, decide who you’ll ask, then create your message. It’s that simple.
The best way to get a good recommendation is to customize your message in the “Create Your Message” section. Don’t simply forward the pre-populated message that’s provided to your connection. Instead, write something that respectfully asks for their recommendation and reminds them of one of your accomplishments. Once you’ve done that, the rest is in their hands.
Step #5: Ask for Endorsements. An endorsement is different from a recommendation in that an endorsement is a one-click response from someone who has visited your profile. When you click on some people’s profiles, you’ll see an area at the top asking if that person has skills and expertise in the areas listed.
Asking for endorsements is easy. Just send a message to one of your connections and ask them if they’d be willing to endorse you. Of course, you’ll want to remind them of your connection (e.g., “You were my client while I was working at XYZ corporation.”) and you’ll want to let them know how easy it is to make an endorsement (e.g., “Just visit my profile and you’ll see buttons at the top with a set of skills you can choose from.”). Endorsements are a simple way to show prospective employers you’ve gotten the thumbs-up from various people you’ve worked with.
Step #6: Think 5 Years Ahead. In an ideal world, the only job you ever need is the first one you got. That actually happens for some people, but in most cases, you’ll work at several different companies during the course of your career. Since that’s the case, it’s a good idea to set your sights about 5 years out and start working your way towards that goal.
For example, you might be working in a marketing communications firm but would someday like to be a brand manager for a consumer package goods company. Or you might be working at a large CPA firm, but really want to own your own business someday. No matter what your long-term plans, it’s always good to stay connected with people who might be able to help you with your transition down the road. So don’t be afraid to reach out and connect to a wide variety of people on LinkedIn. They may not directly influence your life today, but if you stay connected with them and keep them posted on your whereabouts, they can help you three, four or five years down the road.
The 4 most common mistakes when using LinkedIn to establish your career. There are several common mistakes you’ll want to avoid when using LinkedIn at any point in your life. Here they are:
- Mistake #1: Not exploring LinkedIn’s nooks and crannies. There are new LinkedIn features that are introduced all the time. It’s a good idea to explore these when they come online. In most cases, you’ll discover something new that can be used to help further your career. What’s more, you can let your friends and colleagues know about the new features by sending them a message via LinkedIn. This not only positions you as an ambitious professional, but it’s a great way to stir up a discussion with someone who can help you in the future.
- Mistake #2: Letting LinkedIn languish once you land a job. The people who are most successful at using LinkedIn realize that it should be indelibly linked to their careers. In other words, LinkedIn is continuously updated and leveraged during every phase of their business lives. Think of it this way — a paint brush is just a stick of wood until it’s put into the hands of an artist, but in the right hands, it can create a magnificent painting. LinkedIn is like a paintbrush and your career is like a blank canvas. By using the LinkedIn paintbrush every day, you’ll ultimately create a masterpiece.
- Mistake #3: Only using LinkedIn for your career. You’re a multi-faceted human being and LinkedIn is a multi-faceted platform, so don’t be afraid to use it to enhance a variety of aspects in your life. If you’re a stargazer and enjoy looking in the sky late at night, why not join one of the many professional astronomy Groups on LinkedIn? Or, if you’re interested in movies and film, you might want to explore some of the entertainment industry Groups. Just remember that these are professional Groups with members who are experts in their field. In other words, don’t join the Hollywood Movie Deals Group and expect to get a warm reception when you open up a dialogue about the fact that you saw Brad Pitt getting into a taxi in New York City. That’d be a no-no.
- Mistake #4: Not using LinkedIn as a 3 dimensional expression of who you are. Like so many useful tools, LinkedIn is all about what you make of it. If you use it simply as an online resume, you’ll probably be disappointed with the results. But if you use it as a multi-faceted, dynamic, living expression of who you are and where you’re going, you’ll find that it can be very useful indeed. When LinkedIn is used as a 3-dimensional representation of who you are, it almost acts like a magnet that attracts more friends and business associates into your sphere of influence. And when you do that, you’re keeping the door open for future career, business and life opportunities.
The bottom line on using LinkedIn to launch your career. The most important thing you should remember is that LinkedIn living, breathing, dynamic entity. You can use things like LinkedIn Today and industry Groups as a learning tool. And you can use things like the College pages and the Alumni Tool to help map out your career. By making LinkedIn a central part of your online life, you’ll stay in front of people who can help you today, tomorrow and many years down the line.
Action Steps for You:
- Connect with someone. You’ll probably be surprised at how easy it is to engage your connections on LinkedIn. Reach out to them and ask for advice. By doing so, you’ll learn some new things and stay engaged with people who can help you in the future. And who knows? One of your connections may have a mother or father who is looking to hire someone just like you!
- Derive an insight. Go into the Alumni Tool and see what insight you can derive from some of the information. You may notice that a company you want to work for hires people from a specific set of schools. Or you may notice that a percentage of your friends went on to graduate school. By analyzing the information and deriving insights, you’re learning new things that you can apply to your own career as you move forward in life.
- Ask for a recommendation. It’s always a good idea to have recommendations from other professionals on your LinkedIn profile. Asking for a recommendation – and even writing one for a friend – is easy. Once you have 4 or 5 recommendations, you’re in good shape, but be sure to get at least a handful on there as soon as you can.
I hope you’ve found the steps outlined above helpful. There’s a lot to digest here, so don’t hesitate to print it out to review later. If you like what you’ve read, please also feel free to share this post via Twitter, Facebook, Google+ and, of course, LinkedIn.
Jamie Turner is the CEO of the 60 Second Marketer and 60 Second Communications, a marketing communications agency that works with well-known brands and organizations. He is the co-author of “How to Make Money with Social Media” and “Go Mobile” and is a popular marketing speaker at events, trade shows and corporations around the globe.