If you’re like most people with a LinkedIn account, you probably don’t pay much attention to what you’re posting or what your profile looks like. But according to LinkedIn guru Jennifer Darling, you can get a ton of mileage out of keeping your presence fresh:
“A lot of people get on LinkedIn, and they’re overwhelmed,” says Jennifer. “They don’t know what to do or where to start. They think of their profiles like resumes and say, ‘Well I’m not looking for a job right now.'”
But according to Jennifer, LinkedIn’s great for more than just getting a job. If you use it correctly, LinkedIn offers a wealth of engagement, networking, and marketing opportunities – opportunities that most businesses and professionals would gladly pay a lot of money for. So even if you’re not looking for a job, it pays to log in and regularly interact with your LinkedIn network.
“Especially if you’re a business development person, you don’t have time to NOT be on LinkedIn,” says Jennifer. “It’s such a great tool for connecting and engaging with business decision makers. You don’t have to be sales-y or pushy or aggressive, but just offer value to your network. And I’d say that, if you think five minutes a day is too much time to spend on LinkedIn, you might want to shift your thinking. Because you might be missing opportunities … by not making LinkedIn one of the biggest pieces of your marketing strategy.”
How to Measure Your LinkedIn Presence
If you want to take stock of your current LinkedIn presence, Jennifer recommends signing in to LinkedIn’s Social Selling Index. This free tool allows you to measure how effectively you’re cultivating your “personal LinkedIn brand,” and also links out to tips for beefing up your profile and your network.
“It’s also very important to make sure you have a customer-centric profile,” says Jennifer. “[Your profile should] include the keywords your customers are searching for, so you have to stop and think, ‘What are the natural words and phrases that people are searching for?’ And then you need to use those in your profile.”
To learn even more about what you can do with LinkedIn, head over to the Butler Branding YouTube channel to listen to our full interview with Jennifer. She taught us a lot about how to level up our LinkedIn presence, and we know you’ll benefit from her insights, too.
