Getting your words out

There’s an urgent concern every business professional ponders: how are you perceived by your audience(s) on social media, LinkedIn in particular.. 

If you are active here, you need to tie your professional brand messaging to the intended listeners’ interests, and then to spur them to act in some way for the greater good. The more energy the better. The combined force of the crowd can move mountains or tanks or legislation or elections or change mindsets from the established routine.

As a sporadic user you can get lost in the shuffle. Infrequent and often out of the loop, you can be hardly noticed. Being an observer (or less) on the LinkedIn sidelines relegates you to the quiet perimeter of the conversation. Yes, you may have something to offer, and when you do, the skeptical reaction to you is more like “just who are you and why did you contribute this just now?” rather than the embrace of “we've watched you and listened to you routinely and now your quality level impresses us, so we will rally with and around you.”

You have to be actively part of the electronic mix. 

The wallflower never gets dances. They shuffle out dejected, unappreciated, and unvalidated. Not participating is not an option. It’s as if they are stalking and spying but not acting whatsoever. They won’t even get to nibble on leftover crumbs. Is that you?

A few comments I field in my LinkedIn teaching sessions (and if I don’t say the next italicized words out loud, I certainly think them!):

• "I can’t take the time to do this.” Then what else are you spending your time on? You need to start brand marketing yourself and your business on LinkedIn, the pre-eminent currency of thought and ideas among business pros globally.
• “But what if no one responds?” Then change your message or experiment until you find what does. 
• “How often should I post?” That’s up to you, your personality, and the value of the material you curate to share. It’s a different number day-to-day, week-to week. Just be sure you are consistent with the level of meaningfulness of the items you are pushing out. Don’t share junk for the sake of meeting a number of actions in a period of time. 
• How do I know if the material is useful to others?” If you go this far in your evaluation, you are almost ready to disseminate it. Think of people in your connection group who might find it useful. If you can envision one or more, send it to all!
• “Where do I find material to share?” We all read in our work, and some items we come across are worthwhile sharing. Besides, we also have to write in our fields about hot topics and as the expert in that area, you should show your thought leadership. So in the first case, paste the URL of the material you want to show others to your comments about why this is worth reading, and on your own original, personal work, be sure you have the right to share it, from your website, from your blog, or original thoughts that you place as a LinkedIn long-form articles like this one I wrote myself, my own POV.
• “Is it too forward to ask people to share my material?” Absolutely not, and often they have to be nudged and reminded to do so, so end all your comments with “please share” or “what do you think?” or “has this happened to you?” to create a conversation. 
• “But I don’t have anything to say.” {And I hear this a lot!} Then I can’t help you. You need more/other professional help. Really.

It’s not quantity only, as I urged above. It’s about your wanting to contribute to your valued peer community (however you define it) and add to the global conversation. However, the combined quality and quantity of posts will make you stand out and thus increase the odds some great professionals will encounter you, follow your work, and soon debate and “atta-boy/girl” you. Then they share your work and the piece can go viral. 

And you do want to stand out for the right reasons, so make this your priority way to create brand marketing around your thoughts and actions. You will be amazed as you progress. But you have to be in it to win.

So, my readers: how have you been able to communicate in amazing ways through LinkedIn? What successses came as a result?

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About Marc W. Halpert, LinkedIn Trainer and Evangelist

I am a “multi-preneur,” (www.dhirubhai.net/in/marchalpert) having started 3 companies, all of which I continue to operate. My latest business, connect2collaborate, spreads my LinkedIn and networking evangelism worldwide to train and coach others to better explain their brand and positioning on their LinkedIn profile pages:

• as an “evangelist” recognized by LinkedIn to help nonprofits cultivate talent pool, volunteers, boards, and corporate sponsors.
• as a corporate trainer for departments needing to know how to optimize LinkedIn for their responsible areas.
• as a coach helping professional practitioners in all industries use LinkedIn to better achieve their goals.
• as a high-energy speaker at conferences.
• as a volunteer coaching and teaching underemployed babyboomers to master new better career objectives.

I blog daily on LinkedIn topics to encourage readers towards a more beneficial use of this amazing tool. I speak about LinkedIn at public events and private corporate sessions too.

I have authored two books on LinkedIn: the first one was published by the American Bar Association “LinkedIn Marketing Techniques for Law and Professional Practices” was released June 2017 and "You, Us, Them, LinkedIn Marketing Concepts for Nonprofit Professionals Who Really Want to Make A Difference" in June 2018. Both are on Amazon in paper and e-book. The new book also has a companion online e-course to complement it, available here.