From the Sorgatron Media Creators Newsletter List for June 12, 2015. You can Subscribe to it here! You can Read the rest of this newsletter here!
LinkedIn has been a tough nut to crack for me. I had trouble finding the value in it as a user. As a former employee. As a business operator. It didn’t feel genuine, really. My communities were full of hard pushers for whatever they were doing. It was nothing more than an interactive, and easily updatable, resume. And I guess I thought I may need one of those some day down the line.
Within the past year, I determined to give it more attention. A line from a presentation I’ve long forgot the name of explained “Build your LinkedIn connections for when you need it later, not for right now. If you need a new job now, it’s too late to start building your profile and community.” I’m paraphrasing the source, but that’s been my long time interpretation.
It’s professional Facebook, as the easiest way to translate the service. For me, it’s the place I can point someone to to give a the breadth of things I can do. And have done. Because sometimes I forget everything in my portfolio and recommendations after over 10 years of video and social media projects.
But as I build content across the web, I find it’s a great place to put them as conversation starters, and see what my colleagues that I secretly look up to are sharing about our social and media industries.
Some things I’ve been trying that have become very valuable, and mostly within just the last few months!
- Update. The FIRST thing I did was make a note to check my profile and update weekly. This applies to those that have ongoing and multiple projects. I take a pass and consider if any of my projects have been released for public consumption, and update my profile accordingly. Freshness helps. If you do this now, and on a regular basis, it won’t be SO weird to your employer when you actually do want to find that next opportunity outside their doors.
- Post Yes you should post things of interest. I use Hootsuite and just check the box for an article I’m aiming to share on Twitter I think applies in a business sense on my LinkedIn. It lets people know where your interests lie if they follow you, and keeps you’re face in front of them when they log in.
- Engage back! I would often check box blindly people who added me, or people I “may know”. I’ve paired that down to “hey, I recognize that face from a thing that time”. And if I receive an invite from someone I don’t know, instead of just letting it sit there and leave them to their devices and the accuracy of your profile, send them a message. I had a great back and forth and found out why someone followed me on there. Or you discover they’re a recruiter that will send you jobs you’ll never qualify for. Either way, you know!
- Don’t turn off emails. I know the joke is how Linkedin is obsessive in their emails. I just organize them for consumption. For me, there’s a filter in Gmail/Inbox (there should be a version of this in your email client) to put Linkedin emails in a folder. When I’m in the mode, I go through for something valuable, and fishing out decent conversations to drop into from my groups. As few and far between they may be.
So what are you getting out of LinkedIn? What’s your biggest hangup with the service? Let me know!
What do you want me to cover in future newsletters? Let me know here!
Here’s what we have this week: Read the rest of this newsletter here!