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Today‘s blog is all about LinkedIn and how you can leverage the incredible reach that this platform has to offer. I‘m also going to point out a few things that maybe you could do better to take your brand presence to the next level.
Last week I wrote about how to stand out on social media. Of course, the one place that people want to stand out on is LinkedIn.
If you look at some of the stats from the last 12 months, the number of visits people make to LinkedIn has grown exponentially. Throughout the pandemic, people were online a lot more. They looked at what other business owners were talking about, the content people were sharing, the ideas and that need for a connection to your community.
It’s always fascinating that once they talk about how something has altered and changed in shape, it rarely goes back to its original form. That is proving the case with LinkedIn because the number of visitors, the number of members, the number of people purchasing paid LinkedIn products, the number of people investing in paid advertising on LinkedIn have all increased exponentially.
If your market is on LinkedIn and I very much suspect you work in recruitment and staffing, how do you stand out on LinkedIn?
I‘ve got some suggestions for you – some of the things that we teach our Superfast Circle clients regularly about where their focus needs to be. I want to share these ideas with you guys too.
Let‘s kick off with number one, and that is your profile.
1. Your Profile
The first thing people do, if they see something that you‘ve shared and it‘s interesting, or it makes them think, or they wonder who that person is, is to go and check out your profile.
Just like anything, if you want to make an excellent first impression, think about your LinkedIn profile.
- When did you last tweak it or change it?
- Does it have an up to date and relevant image of you?
- Are you using a banner? If you didn‘t already know, you could now have a banner; it helps to stand out visually, it makes you more appealing than if you don‘t have one.
- Is your profile communicating the value that you can add to the market? This is key because not every profile that you read will do that. If you know that you connect one particular type of talent with a specific sector, it is a good idea to make sure that somewhere on your profile, you communicate that.
Sometimes you start to read someone‘s profile, and you think, “What do they do? What particular niche are they serving? Who‘s the ideal person that should be working with this individual?“.
If you look at my profile, and by the way, if we‘re not connected, then reach out and connect with me. I get straight to the point, and I tell people in my title what I do. Mine says, “I help recruitment businesses stand out in a crowded market and generate all the client and candidate leads they want.“
Also, you‘ll notice I have a professional image and a graphic in my banner that is very to the point: a hand coming out of the computer with a magnet, attracting people.
My telephone numbers and email addresses are all over my profile to connect with me straight away. In my ‘about‘ section, I talk in the first paragraph about what we do. Then I talk about the marketing aspects of what we do, so I get straight to the point.
I look at LinkedIn profiles of recruitment businesses regularly, and they don‘t always get to the point about what they do, who they serve, and how they can help people.
That will be your first starting point. If you are reaching out to people or you‘re going to have a concerted LinkedIn campaign, and people will be visiting your profile, you need to make sure that people know who you are, are impressed by you and understand what you do and how you might help them.
So that‘s number one – refreshing your profile.
2. Developing a Plan
Number two is to develop a plan.
Think about:
- Why am I on LinkedIn?
- What do I want to achieve?
- How do I want to elevate my brand?
- What do I want people to do when they get to know me?
- How do I fundamentally stand out?
I would strongly suggest that as part of your plan, it is to build your network.
You can never have too big of a network. Make sure that you do things consistently, like connect with ideal people in your network. While you‘re doing that, throw out people that are irrelevant to you.
When you first joined LinkedIn back in the day, I‘m sure we all accepted connection requests from all sorts of different people that maybe are not aligned to our niche. It‘s much better to have people that are relevant to the market you are in. Make sure that you‘ve got a good clean list of people.
As part of your plan, consistently reach out to people to build your network, then start to engage with these individuals.
That should be your key thing to do on LinkedIn. I remember someone once told me, “Oh, I‘ve got something like 500 connection requests I haven‘t even looked at.“ Which astounded me – what if they were clients who wanted to connect with you?
Have a systematised process that every day you go in and you connect with people, and you answer questions that people maybe have asked you in your LinkedIn messenger.
Remember that everything needs planning, including the content that you‘re sharing. It can be very easy to suddenly think, “Oh my God, I haven‘t posted anything on LinkedIn. I need to get some stuff out.“
3. Share Relevant Content
Ensure you share content, ideas, and suggestions with your market, as this will elevate you as an authority.
People can then check you out as an individual and determine whether you‘re the kind of recruiter they want to work with. Yes, it‘s great to share amusing things on LinkedIn. However, think about how that is going to impact your brand.
Plan out your content. Think about what you will share that will add value, and remember to use and leverage share buttons on your LinkedIn articles.
We live in an environment today where content is king and knowledge and authority. People are looking for advice, and as I‘ve said before, the recruitment sector is perfect for that.
An easy way to do this is if you‘ve got content on your website, which I sincerely hope that you do. If you go along to your website, you‘ll notice a share button.
If you are logged into your LinkedIn account, you can share content from your website seamlessly. Press the share button on any of your blogs or articles, then you can copy the first couple of sentences from the blog post, and you can share that along with the article.
It looks professional, and I have noticed that we always get more views when doing that with our website’s content.
We use a particular type of social sharing button called Social Warfare, which works well.
On your LinkedIn profile, you will notice that you have something called LinkedIn articles. This is an opportunity for you to leverage the content you already have on your blog and share this on LinkedIn articles. You can add a great image, you can add a call to action, and you can link it back to your website.
If you go into your analytics on your website, you‘ll notice that you might be getting backlinks from LinkedIn as well.
That‘s not going to do you any harm at all, and again, we get notified when people share our content and articles.
This is all about elevating you and your brand; the whole point here and what we‘re talking about today is how to stand out on LinkedIn to your market.
The other thing that a lot of people don‘t do is share the love.
4. Connecting with Your Network
By that, I mean to consistently and regularly share and comment on content shared by people you want to work with as well as your clients. When I say regularly, I mean every day.
Now, I know many recruiters freak out when I say this to them because they fear that if people know who they‘re working with, other people will go in and steal their business.
What I have to say to you is that if you are an excellent recruiter and you‘re offering a fantastic service, you don‘t need to worry. People only move suppliers when they aren‘t happy with the service they‘re getting.
If someone has shared, liked or commented on a post of yours, LinkedIn notifies you. If you‘re doing that with people you want to work with, you will stand out to that individual.
When you like and share content and add an intelligent comment, what a difference that will make in helping you stand out.
Next Steps?
There‘s a whistle-stop tour on some different things that you can do to stand out on LinkedIn.
Ensure that you refresh your profile, develop a plan, start connecting with people, start adding value, and communicate how you can help them.
Make sure you have a content plan; and, share your content. Finally, share the love, by liking and commenting because that will help you to stand out in your market.
Do you need to boost your website content? We offer recruitment-specific content packages to improve your sharable website content – get in touch with us on +44 (0)1524 784 331 to find out more.
