As a graduate, soon to be graduate or professional, you really should consider being on LinkedIn. Described as a 24/7/365 online resume, the social media platform is an ever-growing place to market yourself and your talents. It is a powerful place to network and to learn of and engineer job and career opportunities. You’ll understand its power when I tell you that there are more than 380 million profiles logged on LinkedIn and that includes more than 5 million companies and organizations, many of whom use the site as their primary source for recruitment. If you haven’t signed up yet or think your profile can do with some beefing up, here’s how to market yourself on LinkedIn.
Your social media campaign needs a strategy, otherwise you are dabbling in one of the world’s biggest time vampires (social media) without a safety line. It is very easy to lose hours when conducting your social media campaign, so it pays to set a time budget in your strategic plan. This is similar to a deadline you set yourself in order to stop you spending too much time doing one thing. If you are not finished, then whatever tasks you have left must be completed the next day or the next time you go on social media.
If you need longer on LinkedIn, then it is your planning and implementation skills that are at fault. You need to go back to the drawing board and consider where you are going wrong. Figure out what takes you longer than it should and what you are able to do quickly. Plan your campaigns, ensure you know what you want, and set deadlines for when you want them. Otherwise, you are wasting your time and relying on luck for your results.
LinkedIn is not your permanent record or your criminal records. It is something you can change and alter to whatever you like. You can make yourself into the person you want to be. Added to which, it is not as if you are lying on an application form or loan agreement. It is a social media profile, there is no law saying it has to be 100% accurate. If other people are attracted to your profile because of the stuff you put on there, then isn’t that the point?
This seems to be the case with all social media networks. They all seem to reward people that post a lot of content. If you are posting frequently, and your content is getting a reasonable amount of attention, then your profile will be noticed more on both the LinkedIn network, and on the search engines too.
There are going to be times when you post and you see little response, and there are going to be times when it goes the other way. If you measure your metrics, such as profile views and such, then you can see which of your campaign efforts succeed, and which suck. For example, if you have just graduated and you want a job, whenever you post something about your desired working industry, you can see how much attention it grabs. If it grabs a lot of attention, then maybe you are doing something right.
This is easier than you think. It should be on your blog and any guest posts you write. It should be connected to your other social media efforts, and it should be part of your email signature. When you post on websites such as Google+, you can link to your LinkedIn profile too. Also, remember that people seem to like the word “Expert” on LinkedIn, and if you can make yourself come across as some sort of expert or guru, then you may stand a better chance of impressing (or getting the attention of) future employers.
Marketing your name and profile offline may seem a little tacky, but social media is here to stay, so you would be wise to start marketing your personal brand as if it were a product brand.
Have you got a LinkedIn profile? Has it brought you success in the job market?