The top 5 things you can do to enhance your presence on LinkedIn

1. Top 5 tips for using
LinkedIn to promote
yourself on-line
David Doughty
Chief Executive
Excellencia Limited
http://www.linkedin.com/in/daviddoughty
http://www.facebook.com/DavidWDoughty
@daviddoughty
www.excellencia.co.uk

2. 1. Complete your profile
Just over half of LinkedIn users have completed their profiles so
by completing your profile you are going to maximise your
chance of being found by anyone searching for the skills and
experience that you have to offer.
Start by making sure that your name is spelt correctly and
capitalised properly. It is best to just use your first and last
names – avoid initials, titles, qualifications, telephone numbers or
e-mail addresses. Make sure that you are consistent – use the
same name that is on your business card and CV.
Use a professional photograph of yourself – there are many times when you will need to
upload a photo as you enrol on more social media platforms so the relatively small cost
of having a professionally taken photograph will turn out to be a good investment.
Definitely avoid pictures of you on holiday, at a party, playing golf or standing by your
car. LinkedIn is a social networking site for professionals – your profile and especially
your photo should reflect this.
www.excellencia.co.uk

3. 1. Complete your profile
Next consider your headline – it does not have to be your current job title, it can be
anything you want. Consider it to be your strap-line – summing you up in one
sentence. What you put here will appear after your name on your profile and any
LinkedIn activity such as status updates, comments or likes.
Take time to create a headline that will make a great first impression – letting people
know simply and honestly who you are and what you can offer.
Take the same approach with your profile summary – this is your opportunity to tell
everyone who you are and where you have come from but also what you are looking to
do in the future. Try to avoid old CV clichés such as ‘motivated’, ‘creative’, and
‘responsible’ because they have been severely over-used. Also avoid jargon – the
purpose of the summary is to paint a picture of what you can do for your network (and
what they can do for you)
And whilst we are talking about pictures – if you have any relevant documents, slide
presentations or photos of your work make sure you upload them to your profile.
www.excellencia.co.uk

4. 2. Grow your network.
As soon as your profile is complete you need to
start to grow your network – connect with as many
people as you can starting with your existing
contacts. Upload your contacts to LinkedIn from
Outlook, Hotmail, Gmail or whatever e-mail
platform you use.
Start off by connecting with colleagues, friends, former bosses and work
colleagues, current and former customers and suppliers. Ask for
recommendations – you should aim to have at least one recommendation
for every job on your portfolio. These can be from your
manager, reports, customers or suppliers.
Make it easy for people to connect with you on LinkedIn – add your LinkedIn
details to your business card. If you can, put your photo on your business
card – this helps people to remember you and makes sure that they try to
connect with the right person on LinkedIn.
www.excellencia.co.uk

5. 2. Grow your network.
When inviting people to connect with you, personalise the invitation
message rather than using the default LinkedIn invitation – try to give them
as much information as you can about why you want to connect with them.
It is a good idea to have a guiding principle as to who you connect with –
people you know very well, people you have worked with, people you have
met in person are typical criteria that most LinkedIn users start off with. To
grow your network faster you will need to extend this to contacts of contacts
and people you have only met on-line – be cautious of people with no
contacts or inconsistent profiles.
LinkedIn is a social network so take time to interact with your contacts –
even if it is only liking their status updates. Each time you interact with one
of your contacts it will appear as your activity visible to other members of
your network.
LinkedIn helps you to keep in touch by notifying you when it is one of your
contacts birthdays, a work anniversary or they have a new job. All of these
occasions give you an opportunity to build on your relationships with your
network.
www.excellencia.co.uk

6. 3. Be sociable
LinkedIn is a social network after all, albeit a professional one,
so be sociable and join a group. The obvious ones to start with
are the professional groups for members of a profession such as
accountancy or law. If you are a member of a professional body
then the chances are that there will be a LinkedIn group for you
– if not why not create one?
LinkedIn will also suggest groups you might like to join – see
which groups your contacts are members of and see if you
would like to join those.
You can also search for groups from your LinkedIn tool-bar –
once you have found a group you like the look of you can click
on the information ‘i’ to get a detailed breakdown of how many
members there are in the group, what the demographic is and
how fast the group is growing.
www.excellencia.co.uk

7. 3. Be sociable
As with any social group, most LinkedIn groups have rules about who
can start discussions and make comments as well as the sort of content
that is expected. Start off by following discussions in your group – you
can get e-mail notification of whenever a new discussion or comment
has been added to the group. Make pertinent comments to discussions
you are following – also consider starting your own discussions or polls.
Every time you make a contribution to one of your groups your network
will see it on their status feeds. By making intelligent, useful
contributions to discussions which have a bearing on your area of
expertise you can enhance your reputation and get yourself noticed.
Where possible, avoid negative or destructive comments – you might
feel like having a rant about the latest government policy but this
generally has less effect than making positive, useful suggestions about
what the government should be doing.
www.excellencia.co.uk

8. 4. Use LinkedIn little and often.
LinkedIn should become part of your daily routine, in the same
way that e-mails are – spend 5 to 10 minutes on LinkedIn 2 or 3
times a day. Download the LinkedIn app for your smart phone
and keep abreast of what is happening in your network whilst
you are on the move.
You do not have to be on LinkedIn all the time – you can set up
e-mail notifications to tell you when there are new discussions
or comments in your groups.
Remember to keep your profile up to date and synchronised
with your CV – recruiters will check your CV against your
LinkedIn profile so make sure that they are consistent. Add new
projects, publications or qualifications to your profile. If you are
still building your profile you can turn off the LinkedIn activity
broadcasts so that your contacts do not keep congratulating you
every time you make a change to your profile.
www.excellencia.co.uk

9. 4. Use LinkedIn little and often.
Get into the habit of updating your status
regularly with things that you think your network
will want to know about – either things that you
are personally involved in or articles, books or
videos that are of interest. Like or comment on
the updates of your contacts and share useful
information and opinion with your network.
Using LinkedIn little and often will ensure that
you are seen as an active professional and this
will enhance the impression you create.
www.excellencia.co.uk

10. 5. Use apps to integrate your
social media platforms.
LinkedIn should be part of an integrated Social Media strategy
which includes Twitter and Facebook – your LinkedIn status updates
can also be posted as tweets, for example, if you have registered
your twitter account with LinkedIn,
Consider setting up a blog for yourself where you can write
extended entries about your work and your areas of expertise –
these can be linked to appear as status updates in
LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter which maximises their exposure for
the minimum effort.
You can add your twitter account and up to three web-site links to
your profile – typically your work web-site and your personal blog.
Your web-sites can contain links to your LinkedIn profile, your
groups and your LinkedIn company pages – these and other apps
are available from the LinkedIn developers web-site.
www.excellencia.co.uk

11. Social Media for Beginners
Find out more about how you can use Social Media to position
yourself on-line at this interactive half-day workshop
http://www.excellencia.co.uk/social-media-for-beginners/
www.excellencia.co.uk