Are You On Track for Communicating Well on LinkedIn Professionally and Personally, and How Can You Tell?
Remember when your resume was a private file in a folder in your home or in your home computer? Those days seem to be far from over, and for many people, it’s a good thing.
LinkedIn is a service that allows you to network online. In the business world, and according to the dictionary,
“a network is a group of people who exchange information, contacts and experiences for professional or social purposes.”
In Day 5 of the 10 Day Social Media Challenge, Natalie Sisson asks us to ponder on this question:
How are you using LinkedIn to establish your credibility, build your professional rolodex and attract new clients, partnerships or business?
To Create or To Not Create a LinkedIn Profile
I have to say that for the longest time, when I worked for corporate America, I used to be very apprehensive about creating a LinkedIn Profile. I would question myself in the following ways:
- Why create a LinkedIn profile if I already have a job?
- What if my boss sees my profile? Will he think I’m looking for another job?
- Why would anybody want to put their resume “out there,” with their address, phone number and all?
- What can LinkedIn provide me with?
But, after talking to a dear and long-time friend, he shared his experience and his benefits for creating a profile and I did. You might be asking yourself, did I expose my picture, resume and all? Nope.
So to answer Natalie’s question… I haven’t used LinkedIn much at all. I’ve only opened it a couple of times. Truth be told, I haven’t really seen for myself how LinkedIn can be beneficial for me, personally. I know and agree 100% that it has been very beneficial for other people, but based on where I’m at in life, right now, I will add enhancing my LinkedIn profile to my to do list and will complete it after I become more adept at working with Twitter, Facebeook, Pinterest and Google Plus, in that order, and based on the analysis for what my goals are. Be sure to analyze which social media platforms are best for your audience and work on them accordingly.
How Might LinkedIn Benefit You?
There are people who have reaped great rewards such as:
- getting a new job
- getting references
- interacting with CEO
- creating business partnerships
- increased their business
- found friends
Of course, there are many other benefits and some people have been very “lucky” and make contacts with people that they couldn’t have reached in a million years.
How to Enhance Your LinkedIn Profile
Natalie Sisson suggests having a personal profile and a business profile. What’s better yet, is in her blog post for Day 5, she provides a great checklist for improving your LinkedIn profiles.
In order to take your LinkedIn page to the next level and see how you can use it creatively, be sure to read this article titled, 5 Creative Ways to Use LinkedIn.
With everything going on in your life and business, you can get the nitty-gritty FAQs for how to best implement a business LinkedIn page by reading the following page, 10 Questions to Ask When Creating Your LinkedIn Company Page.
As with all social media tools, it will take knowing yourself, your audience, your resources, your creativity and your evolution to used LinkedIn in the best manner both professionally and personally, so be patient and diligent enough to tweak these profiles until they reach the greatest impact.
Your Turn to Make Contact
- What was your one take-away from this article regarding how to use LinkedIn?
- Given it’s room for creative potential, how have you used LinkedIn successfully?
If you so feel inclined, please share this article with your network.
