Making LinkedIn Work For You

“So many people miss that LinkedIn is about the clouds of relationships that you can harness to tell your story…and share the stories of others,” says Jason Terry in a recent podcast episode about LinkedIn. LinkedIn has changed in many ways over the years, but it is perhaps best known as a place to be your “professional self.” As our society becomes more accustomed to that “professional self” including pictures of you and your family or moments of deep vulnerability, LinkedIn provides one more way for you and your business to tell your story and gain more customers in the process.

Offer Status Updates

One of the realities of building a business is we often fail to take a moment to document (and enjoy) the journey. So often we are trying to get from Point A to B, head down, in the weeds, that we forget that there are so many people on the sidelines cheering us on. LinkedIn provides an easy way for you to tell those who care about you, personally and professionally, about what’s the latest with your business. This could be a long written post, some photos, a short (or long video), or a combination of all the above. Consider doing this at least monthly. When you go to sell your business, you’ll have a lot of easy narrative milestones to share, and while you’re documenting, you’ll remind people about what you do and pick up some leads.

Create Content Regularly

If you really want to step your LinkedIn game up, consider creating content weekly. If the monthly content is about your business in general, think about weekly content in relation to your own journey. Maybe you had a revelatory client call. Maybe your kid hit an important jump shot. Maybe you got to spend some time with your mom. What you do for a living may have been in some small way related to those events. Share your own insights, and if it makes sense, relate it to what you do, but that’s not necessary. If the content is interesting, people will click through to learn more about you (and perhaps do business with you).

Get Personal

Two of the examples we gave in the previous section were pretty personal, which for a certain generation is still something that you keep separate from work. But the rising generations have no such boundaries, and many people appreciate getting to know you outside of your role at work. Your picture of a trip to Napa with your spouse might inspire someone else to finally do something similar with his/her family. Your postmortem of how you lost a client or had to fire someone may lead to an entire flurry in the comments section leading you to greater insights. The more we reveal who we are, the more we give people a chance to know and like us, and people prefer to do business with those we know and like.

Don’t Just Comment

Yes, a “like” or an emoji does help a post get more visibility, but it’s only a fraction of the engagement that can happen if you take the time to comment. If the above advice was about you sharing your stories with the world, this last section reminds you to engage with those who are willing to share their stories with you. It takes no effort to “like” a post. It only takes a few seconds more to say something nice, and maybe 30 seconds more to contribute to a conversation. Take that time; you’ll be glad you did. (And once again, it may result in a lead).