A few days ago, I was wondering how do I promote an infographic in order to get shares and drive traffic to a website. Not only that I was aware of the common sense rules of sharing visual content on Pinterest, Visual.ly, StumbleUpon and other directories and social networks, but I was sure that I could do a lot more to get outstanding results. Therefore, I started my research and this article from SociallySorted.com inspired me to use my LinkedIn Profile at its best.
Why is your LinkedIn Profile such a great opportunity to increase personal awareness?
Firstly, the individual LinkedIn Profile is a mirror that reflects who we are in our professional life. If you’re in the content marketing / social media / blogging area, you know that what matters the most is how people perceive you by your work: blog posts, guest posts, LinkedIn posts, other social media updates, the content you’re sharing, your authority, the number of followers on Twitter, etc. Thus, your LinkedIn profile is a gold mine to increase personal awareness and to become trustworthy in your industry.
Secondly, building an ‘optimized’ LinkedIn Profile has benefits for you and your company (if you’re working for a company that relies on inbound marketing strategies to attract new customers or in an internet marketing agency).
People trust people, not products.
Therefore, increasing your authority on LinkedIn is the way to make sure that you’re growing as a professional in your area of expertise.
Tips on how to use LinkedIn Profile for raising awareness
1. LinkedIn Professional Portfolio
Last year, LinkedIn launched the LinkedIn Professional Portfolio, a way to visually showcase your professional story on your profile. Instead of having a standardized profile like any user on LinkedIn, you could just create an eye-catching profile that would appeal to companies or to other people who need your skills or services. You become more attractive for other professionals and new job offers, why not?
This Slideshare Presentation provides with a few examples of how to use this feature:
This LinkedIn feature is suitable especially for professionals who use visual content to promote their business or to build their personal brand such as web designers, creative and art directors, etc. Though, anyone who works in the internet marketing industry can use this feature for the fact that the internet has become the most creative medium nowadays. We can now see curation platforms with pieces of art created by people all around the world who otherwise couldn’t make themselves known to the audience. Pretty cool, right?
Following best practices or benchmarking has become old. These days, the ones who manage to have a successful business or to become experts in their area of experise are the innovators. They are always keeping in touch with tech news, they’re testing online tools and they’re sharing relevant and valuable content with their audience. They are also the ones who set trends and who don’t let others to decide for them.
2. LinkedIn Professional Publishing Platform
Who doesn’t want to become a publisher?
The benefit of publishing is obvious: on the internet, people go where the content is.
Then, why not using LinkedIn to communicate what you have to say?
This LinkedIn release alows anyone to publish posts on Pulse. I haven’t still started to publish on LinkedIn, but it’s on my priorities list. What I know is that other people started to do that and I must tell that I don’t want to miss this opportunity. So, here are the great things about publishing on LinkedIn:
i. your post will appear on your profile and it will be shared with your network
ii. you’ll be able to follow other’s posts without being a connection
iii. you’ll have an analytics report that includes stats, views and other metrics
Here’s how it looks like:
There is no risk in testing this feature, so I encourage you to do it – as I will also do.
Using LinkedIn posts is the alternative to pushing your content to your audience. Instead of sharing content on social networks or writing guest posts on other site, these posts involve showcasing to others your information.
In this case, publishing on your profile represents a “pull” marketing strategy: you let people come to you to consume your content. It’s your home and you’re the owner who can control anything that might occur. Compared to Facebook or Twitter, LinkedIn has a different audience: business orientated people who are spending their time to get inspired and to connect with professionals.
LinkedIn is only the hub that connects people with high potential to become successful. Use it as a medium to achieve your goals, not as an end itself. By integrating LinkedIn in your strategy you will be able to see the growth in self esteem and knowledge, because you will want to write more and more and to get better at what you do.
I will start publishing on LinkedIn. What about you?
Image source
See also: 6 Tips to Improve Your LinkedIn Profile
