Do Social; Social Selling – daRosa New Media

LinkedIn Tip: Treat Your Connections BETTER (#DoSocial)

Posted on January 12, 2016January 12, 2016 by daRosa New Media & Training

January 12, 2016

Here’s a quick & simple tip to maximize the time you spend on LinkedIn (you can use this in any social media platform). Treat your Connections better – be thoughtful with your messages, the In-Mails you send and the way you respond/don’t respond to requests.

We get so busy & quite honestly very lazy in a culture of instantaneous information that can forget these requests to connect, for networking and other (sometimes crazy or even spammy requests) come from real people. I can get caught up in talking about how many connections I have…but what that really means in terms of LinkedIn is really a quite powerful communication tool.

I have 4,712 Connections which gives me access to 4,341,087 professionals through 1st, 2nd and group connections. Check how widespread your messages reach; go to the Advanced Search tab & it’s listed there at the top. You can select & deselect locations, groups, 2nd connections and other categories to refine a search. While none of my messages will reach over 4m people on LinkedIn it shows you the magnitude of having nearly 5,000 1st Connections.

Take-away #1: Do Social & be real in your interactions with Connections on social media. This realness, takes more time because it requires you to craft personal notes, not just “Please connect with me, I’m trying to reach 5,000 Connections”. It’s a better way to interact with people on and off social media.

Take-away #2: Take the time to build up your 1st Connections. If you aren’t over 500, I’d ask you why you are on LinkedIn, what purpose is it really serving in your professional networking or job search? Go for a balance of quality and quantity, why not shoot for 1,000 Connections by April 1st, that’s nearly 3 months to grow the reach of your contacts and message on the professional networking platform.

If you’d like a free LinkedIn profile review reach out & we’ll chat this week. I met with several mid-career professionals this week talking about their profile and how to maximize their existing skills, experience and highlight those on LinkedIn with minimal work. You need to determine why you are on LinkedIn – make sure your profile does your experience justice!

Reach out & let’s ‘do social’ on LinkedIn! Liz

3 Must-Have’s for Your LinkedIn Profile

Posted on January 5, 2016January 5, 2016 by daRosa New Media & Training

January 5, 2016

I’m sure you’re on LinkedIn but have you made sure you have the basics covered before you spend time connecting with key influencers or future job prospects? I believe there are 3 must-have’s in your LinkedIn profile before you should spend the time building it out, connecting with others or joining Groups.

First, your LinkedIn profile HAS to be accurate. This is a non-negotiable. List the title you had not the one you wished you had – don’t write down ‘hands-on manager’ if the only management experience you truly had at that position was over yourself! Don’t eye roll, you’d be amazed what people think is true and what really is. I had someone tell me that he had an MBA listed but hadn’t even applied to the program but been thinking about it – that’s NOT accurate!! If you don’t have enough to put on your profile then find a place to volunteer to build your experience.

Second, be consistent with your resume/CV & social media profiles such as LinkedIn. I’m not saying you need to have your resume verbatim on LinkedIn but the timeline should be the same, the companies you worked for should be the same. It’s easy when doing your LinkedIn profile to skim over details and guesstimate on dates/titles held. True-up your resume with your social media profiles.

Third, be REAL in how you portray yourself especially in your profile picture. Most of us have heard “leave off your high school graduation date” so a future employer doesn’t know how old you are by looking at your resume & I agree. However, LinkedIn captures you as a professional, not as a high school graduate, this isn’t time to walk down memory lane so don’t post a picture from your high school year book or your wedding from 20 years ago because that’s the last time you had a ‘nice picture’ taken.

Have a nice picture taken of you & put it in your LinkedIn profile. Don’t post a picture walking your dog, at your kids 1st birthday party, washing your car…(unless your profession is directly related to those).

One prerequisite for my profile pics (a sampling is above) is a smile – I want to convey happy & be relatable in my profile so I always pick a picture where I’m smiling. In each you’ll see a person cropped out, I’m ok with the picture not being ‘perfect’. I personally like to see the real person in their profile picture that helps the profile come to life!

These are the basics of a profile, get these down and you will be ready to build our your profile. More on that next week…

If we aren’t already connected on LinkedIn connect with me! If you’d like a free LinkedIn profile review shoot me an email.

Go & Do Social on LinkedIn and be more connected with other professionals! Liz