Being on LinkedIn is important for your business so make sure you have a profile that is up to date. LinkedIn gets tons of traffic and is one of the best platforms for business to business communication. Let’s dive into what you really need to have on your profile to be LinkedIn.

Complete Your Profile

The most important step for LinkedIn is to complete your profile. Yes, ALL of your profile. That means your summary, your experience, and all the rest. LinkedIn wants you to have a completed profile so they will periodically prompt you to complete it. Every time you log in they’re going to ask you if you want to add any pieces of information that are missing. Go ahead and walk through those prompts and get it done.

Pay particular attention to your summary versus your work experience. Your summary is exactly what it says it is. It’s a summation of your work experience so it doesn’t need to be 10 pages long. It needs to be a few paragraphs that are broken out into manageable, easy to read pieces. You can several paragraphs but it needs to be visually appealing so that people will actually read it. If it’s one big block of text, most people won’t slog through all that. You want it to summarize your experience with whatever you are trying to accomplish first. Whatever you can offer a potential client needs to be your first sentence. One of the biggest mistakes I see regularly on LinkedIn is people burying the lead. Someone shouldn’t have to read 2 paragraphs before they figure out what it is that you do. Make it clear in the first 1 or 2 sentences. 

On the experience portion, you can get more detailed. You can list out every job and all the accompanying information. In fact, you want to do that. Also, don’t forget to list your volunteer experience. Just because you don’t get paid to do it doesn’t make it less valuable or invalidate what you do. If you helped organize the Susan G. Komen run for cancer and it had thousands of volunteers and you were the project manager for the event, that’s huge. That’s really valuable experience that can help you down the line. It also helps you connect with other people who are interested in your nonprofits and your hobbies. So definitely make sure you list all volunteer experience. If you’re job hunting, recruiters will often weigh volunteer experience as heavily as they weight job experience so don’t leave it out.

Get those recommendations. A good standard to go by is to have 1 recommendation for every 100 connections you have. You don’t really need more than 10. Ask several people because most won’t do it even if they love you and had a great experience with you. They often just don’t want to take the time to fill out the recommendation. Try to have at least one for each job you’ve had in the last 10 years as well. 

Connect with Others

You’re going to want to connect. If you don’t have any connections it makes you look fake so make sure that you take a moment to connect to other users. Ideally, you want to get to 250 as quickly as possible. Your next goal should be 500. After 500, LinkedIn stops displaying how many you have for the world to see and it makes you look like more of an authority figure in your field. Connect to those you know in real life, those you may work in the same building with, and those you have similar interests to. 

Participate and Post

You need to participate and post. LinkedIn gives you the ability to post every day, just like Facebook or Instagram. If you will simply post daily, you increase your odds of being seen on the platform. You don’t have to write a blog or article daily. You don’t have to join a ton of groups and share information. You just need to post a few times per week. Out of LinkedIn’s 600 million monthly users, only 3 million contribute. This means that if you’re one of the people that actually post it will help you stand out. Again, if you’re job hunting, just a simple post each day is going to make you stand out from the crowd. It’s 60% more effective than sending an inmail. 

Join Groups

Don’t forget about groups. Groups are a great way to connect with those who have similar interests or are in a similar industry. Don’t get so invested in your colleagues and industry that you forget about connecting with your end-users as well. For instance, if you are a female engineer, you will definitely want to connect with engineering groups but don’t forget to connect with your women’s groups as well. Were you in a fraternity or sorority? Join their group. 

Have a Page for Your Business

It’s vitally important that you have a page for your business. If your business already has a page, make sure you are connected to it and participate. List yourself as an employee. Comment when there are posts. Have an opinion. Open a discussion. Post information yourself. It’s a great way to connect with coworkers and validate yourself as an expert in your field. LinkedIn is the best platform to show people your expertise and the projects you’re working on and a great way to support your company. 

Get LinkedIn

Those are the 5 easy steps to getting LinkedIn. Update your profile today and optimize your influence on the platform today.