LinkedIn is the social network of professionals and if you know the keys to know how to function, over time, surely you will have many doors open. This social network has 575 million users, 260 million of them active. Of these, 40% use it daily. Today, LinkedIn is the world’s largest professional social network. It is only Spain there are 10 million registered users.
However, with the free version, there is more than enough to take advantage of this social network.
LinkedIn, the social network for professionals
The main reason for LinkedIn is to build connections between professionals and serve as a “showcase” for your professional profile. It is a social network not as intuitive as the others, but with a little practice and some tricks that we tell you, you will surely do very well.
What is LinkedIn?
LinkedIn is a platform that emerged in 2002, to put professionals in contact with others, or with companies. But its objective is not only to look for work, on LinkedIn, but you can also find ideas, people with whom to do business or promote your service, product, or knowledge on a topic.
This is the main LinkedIn screen.
To achieve these goals, it is important that you have a good profile. After creating the profile on LinkedIn, you must complete your professional profile; what do you do, what knowledge you have, what job you want or what have you had, or the experience you have.
On LinkedIn, publications are made that can contain only text, or combine it with photos, videos, links, or surveys, and people interact with them. LinkedIn reactions are not the “I like you” to which we are used, but “I recommend”, “celebrate”, “support”, “enchant”, “interest” or “give curiosity”, and the publications can be commented, share, and send
How does LinkedIn work?
As we have already mentioned, LinkedIn is a social network to create connections with other professionals, not just an “online resume”.
One of the advantages of this platform is that you have two options to register: create a professional or company profile. This choice will depend on your situation, but unless you have a company, it will be better for you to create a professional profile.
As for the publications, the dynamics in LinkedIn are similar to any other social network in which from your user you create content, publish it, and interact with that the contacts that you have added. You can also send and receive private messages. The type of LinkedIn posts are related to work, the advertising you make on LinkedIn about it, or real experiences that you want to share and add some value. You should never talk about issues of your private life as it could be on Facebook or Instagram (on LinkedIn it does not matter if you have a coffee in the center of Madrid or go on a trip with your friends, do not upload it), it is not the spirit of this social network.
Example of a good post on LinkedIn.
An essential of LinkedIn is to establish your personal brand. To do this, you must be clear about what knowledge you want to disseminate, how to do it, and what objectives you want to achieve. As it is a subject that requires some dedication, I leave you these posts that talk about how to get a good personal brand.
What is personal branding?
What is this “personal brand”?
In a situation of excess professionals, it is vital to differentiate yourself to survive, creating a personal brand is the best way to do it.
This is much easier to achieve knowing well how this social network works, as well as some tricks that we leave you below.
LinkedIn: what is this professional social network for?
Although it is a social network, it is true that it is not as intuitive as the ones we already know when using it. That is why it is highly recommended that, if you want to become a LinkedIn expert, keep reading the tricks that we leave you below.
LinkedIn and your personal brand
As we have mentioned before, having a defined and clear personal brand is something that is essential in the workplace. Work on your profile on LinkedIn and you will get a reputation that allows you to show your talent. This profile is an excellent example of how to create your LinkedIn profile. If you have a website for your business, you can use LinkedIn advertising to increase web traffic, and get “free” publicity by creating quality content and getting people to notice you.
For example, if you have an online store, you can expose your products in each post you upload, if you are an artist it is a great opportunity to show the world your works, or if you are an advertising agency you can show the results obtained from your clients.
A very common thing in this social network is to share real experiences, stories that have happened to you or have made you reflect on a topic or attitude, which helps to empathize with your audience and increase interaction.
How to upload your resume and search for work on LinkedIn
Although it is not a platform exclusively for job search, many companies spend human resources time searching for profiles that may interest them and setting up interviews. Regarding how to search for a job on it, we can say that there are two very common “methods”: The recruiters of the companies can get into your profile and see your resume, they will contact you when they match your skills. If you are an active person, who spreads knowledge and takes care of the details of your publications, the recruiters of companies will surely notice you. Being proactive and signing up for selection processes published on LinkedIn. On many occasions, recruiters from some companies hang job offers on their walls, and you can sign up there.
This is an example of a job posting post
In addition, there is its own section, LinkedIn Jobs, similar to a job board, which we will see later.
How to Network on LinkedIn: The Importance of Contacts
Having a large network of LinkedIn contacts with whom you can connect and create professional synergies is something that will open many doors for you.
Through the interactions, you make with your content, and private messages, you will be able to meet people in your sector, or who may be complementary at some point.
MULTIPLY THE NUMBER OF CLICKS ON YOUR CONTENTS
How to do business with digital marketing on LinkedIn
According to a survey conducted by Hubspot, LinkedIn is 277% more effective at generating leads than Facebook and Instagram. The concept of “lead” in the field of marketing can have several nuances, but its main meaning is to establish some kind of relationship with a possible client. A clear example of how to sell your products on LinkedIn. It is important to follow a marketing strategy for LinkedIn. Getting greater visibility of your business, or your talent, is something simple if you put in a little effort in each publication. By posting content on LinkedIn that your circle of contacts find interesting, they can “recommend” it, and thus, your circle will see it and can interact with it.
In other words, it’s about trying to inbound marketing your personal brand on LinkedIn. This is super important, and it probably still sounds a bit strange to you.
Take a look at this post to learn how to publish quality LinkedIn content and reach many more people.
How to post job openings on LinkedIn
If your goal is to find the most suitable candidate on LinkedIn, you can achieve this in several very simple ways.
The first is simply to publish a post in ad format on LinkedIn, where you describe the job offer. Little by little, people will “recommend” it and it will be shared on the walls of many people, who will contact you. If in the post you put an image that attracts attention, with a clear message that you are looking to hire someone, better, as in the image in the section “How to upload your resume and look for work on it
Another possibility is to use Recruiter, which is a system that allows you to access the LinkedIn database and thus be able to find many more candidates. The only drawback is that it is paid, although you have the possibility of a free demo.
How to use LinkedIn to get the most out of it
Now that we know a little about this platform, and all its usefulness, it is time to delve a little into “the crumb” and the tricks so that everything goes smoothly. When you master the concepts that we are going to see now, and you have taken a few hours of practice, you will surely achieve whatever your goal is in this social network.
LinkedIn groups: what they are and how they work
LinkedIn groups are a super useful tool, used to keep up to date on the topics that interest you, to consult professional questions with experts, to boost your personal brand, and much more. The dynamics of the groups are practically similar to that of a discussion forum: any member of the group can open a discussion thread (debates) on any topic and if they manage to capture the interest of the group, a great conversation is generated between professionals.
To search for a specific group use the search bar
Participating in the right groups will provide you a great way to demonstrate your knowledge to others and is, therefore, a very good way to network. At this point, it should also be noted that LinkedIn groups have a very general positive and professional attitude, of collaboration and a very good attitude towards contributions. The dynamics of the conversations are not comparable to what is breathed in some other communities that seem more chicken coops with sometimes even toxic overtones in their conversations.
LinkedIn Learning: Online LinkedIn Courses
LinkedIn Learning is a parallel platform to LinkedIn, offering more than 16,000 online courses, free and paid. To access, you must first sign up, but there is a free trial month. Topics range from business courses, creativity courses, technology skills, or team building.
LinkedIn Jobs: Job Openings on LinkedIn
LinkedIn Jobs is one of the sections of this platform, which brings together the selection processes that companies open and show on LinkedIn. A list of the positions is shown, along with the name of the companies, the place of performance, and the status of the application. Typically, LinkedIn job postings most related to the type of job you added to your profile will be displayed.
One of the great advantages is that you have a search bar, where you can indicate the type of job you want, by position, skills, salary, etc.
And very important. If you are looking for a job on LinkedIn, take a look at this post:
Take a skills test on LinkedIn
The LinkedIn aptitude tests are functionality with which you can prove your worth in certain fields that you master and that you have added as knowledge to your profile. As we saw before, recruiters for companies use LinkedIn a lot to select candidates, and if you have performed these tests, you are objectively demonstrating that you have the qualities that the company needs.
These are some of the tests available on LinkedIn
At the moment, most of the skills tests that are available on LinkedIn are on technical programming knowledge, such as Java, C ++ or PHP, on business skills, with the entire Microsoft environment (PowerPoint, Power BI, Excel, etc) or skills design (Adobe).
If you pass the test gives you a badge, which you can attach to your profile. This badge serves to increase the Social Selling Index (SSI), which is a score that gives its members, from zero to one hundred, and that positions you in searches based on your presence on the network and your experience.
LinkedIn recommendations
Recommendations are “reviews” that other LinkedIn users leave on your profile, confirming your professional worth and endorsing the knowledge you have. And this is something that comes in handy for your profile because it is a sign that other professionals value your work.
To get a recommendation, you must ask a contact to make it for you. I recommend that before doing so, you talk to the person via email or private chat, and when you have a positive response, request a recommendation from LinkedIn. There are two ways to request it; from your profile or from his. In the first case, go to your LinkedIn profile, to the “Add section” section. A drop-down menu opens and you must click on “Additional information”, and click on “Request a recommendation.”
In the navigation bar write the name of the person from whom you want to request a recommendation. Once you are in that window, you must select the contact from whom you want to request that recommendation and include a private message. If you prefer to do it from that person’s profile, you must click on the three little black dots next to their profile photo, select the option “Request a recommendation” and follow the same steps we saw before.
Go ahead and discover all the advantages of having a recommendation on your profile!
How to create an attractive profile on LinkedIn
Creating a LinkedIn profile is a process that will not take you more than five minutes, but I highly recommend that you customize it to the maximum. For this, it is necessary that you follow a series of steps, which we summarize in this post:
And if you are one of those who prefer to see it on video, I leave you this tutorial in which we also explain it to you step by step:
How to create a company profile on LinkedIn
A company profile and a company page on LinkedIn are the same concepts. To get started with one, just go to your personal profile, and click, top right, on “Products.” A menu with different options is displayed but go to the last one, where it says “Company Page”.
Now, you must indicate your company data in each of the boxes that appear, and when you finish, click on “Create the page”, at the bottom right.
LinkedIn Premium vs LinkedIn Free
As you already know, creating a profile on LinkedIn is completely free, and sharing publications too. However, this platform offers a series of features that you can only access by paying. Generally, these functionalities are aimed at human resource managers who use LinkedIn to find workers, people who actively seek employment on this network, or who make a living on social networks.
These are the four different rates for LinkedIn Premium
There are several different fees, which include functionalities as the price goes up. The cheapest price, indicated for those who are looking for a job, is $ 30 per month,
With this type of account, you can send Inmail, which are private messages to people that you have not added as a contact, you can see who has visited your profile in the last 90 days, and perform advanced searches with filters and more results.
My advice is that, if you are in one of the cases that you are interested in paying for this service, first learn in-depth how LinkedIn works, and if the free version (which in terms of utility is more than enough), before paying that amount a month.
