9 simple LinkedIn tips to help increase your revenue

28th, Jul 2019

Most professionals have a profile on LinkedIn, but few are taking full advantage of all that LinkedIn has to offer. This is a wasted opportunity because LinkedIn is an effective tool to help you get noticed, stay top of mind and build deeper relationships with your contacts. For those willing to spend at least 15 minutes a day on LinkedIn, there are great rewards. Remember that as you take these steps:

1. Maximize your profile. Fill out your profile completely. Start with an interesting and descriptive title at the top under your name (don’t use the default setting of your current job title). Add a summary section that outlines who you help, what you do and how you are different. Then fill in the various sections with your education, training, publications, activities, etc.

2. Connect to people you know. When you meet new people in person or see someone you used to know on LinkedIn, send them an invitation to connect and personalize it. You can also import your contacts into LinkedIn but be careful not to accidentally invite everyone. Once you connect, review the person’s profile, connections and recent postings to learn more about their interests and contacts. Also follow up by email and/or phone. The strongest relationships have multiple touchpoints.

3. Research prospects and referral sources. A LinkedIn search can help you find companies or individuals you want to contact or learn more about them including whether you have common connections who could give you an introduction. This is also useful if someone reached out to you and you want to know more about them before you speak or meet.

4. Check your Notifications tab. The top navigation on LinkedIn has a tab called Notifications. It shows information like your contacts’ birthdays, anniversaries, new jobs, articles published, people who liked/commented on your posts, etc. Use this as an opportunity to reconnect. LinkedIn makes it easy to send congrats or other appropriate message, but depending on the nature of the notification, take it a step further and reach out by email or phone.

5. Post regularly.The more you share content, the more opportunities to be noticed. It’s like networking in person. You don’t go to one event; you keep showing up and talking to people. Of course, you also must have something interesting to say so don’t post junk. Consider your audience’s interests and share accordingly. LinkedIn helps you find shareable content by allowing you to follow organizations, people, groups, and hashtags. Outside of LinkedIn, you can also set up free google alerts or sign up for services that help you curate appropriate content.

6. Leverage comments. While it’s nice to “like” someone else’s post, adding a comment makes it much more meaningful to the person and draws more attention to the post and to you. That is also likely to be reciprocated by the other person in the future to help you. If someone offers a substantive or detailed comment on one of your posts, respond to them publicly or privately. Acknowledging them helps to build the relationship. Remember to reciprocate if you can.

7. Include visuals. People have short attention spans and studies show that individuals are substantially more likely to respond to visual information than text. So, make sure every post has an image with it – photo, graphic, video, etc. Video in particular is exploding on LinkedIn. Start using it now before everyone is there.

8. Use hashtags. Hashtags are keywords that you can use that will group your content with similar content on social media (e.g. #MeToo). They make it easy for users to search for specific content. So, adding hashtags to your posts expands your reach because others with an interest in the topic can find you with little extra effort on your part. You can also follow or search for hashtags to find content you can share on social media.

9. Leverage employees. Encourage employees to connect with their contacts and build their LinkedIn network. Then they can share your firm’s social media posts with their network. It’s an easy way to expand your reach.

This is not a complete list, but it is doable in 15 minutes a day. Just a little time every day can significantly boost your visibility that will pay off in more referrals and business.

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