How-To: LinkedIn Essentials

A couple of weeks ago I conducted a workshop for the students of Estonian Academy of Arts (Tallinn) on how to use LinkedIn. Except for the sarcastic notes “Isn’t LinkedIn for, well, older people?” and “Shouldn’t I just put my CV up there?”, there was a lot of interest in how to use the platform to their benefit. The following article is based on our interaction.

Anyone could benefit from these tips. Here, I will highlight some simple steps to enhancing the profile without revamping it. I learned them from Melonie Dodaro and Olga Yurchenko (see links at the end) and implemented myself in the past 2 years. These are actionable insights that proved their efficiency.

I. Define Your Goal

There are several ways to approach your LinkedIn profile. You can treat it as a longer CV, as a portfolio, as a tool for communication with clients, as a platform to find new customers. In the image above, I listed some ways I use LinkedIn.

Your choice will define your strategy. If you want the profile to be more of a CV, you don’t need to write posts or articles or get involved in the community life. If you’d like to get industry insights, you’ll need to find and follow the main players. The wider your goal, the more time and effort you’ll need to invest.

II. Create a Strong Profile

You can get advice from numerous books and articles on how to create a profile. Here are the main steps I suggest:

1. Change the photo and the headline to reflect the goal you set for yourself. Now it’s popular to write how you help the businesses, not just mention the position.
2. Be client-centric. Don’t only describe how cool you are, but mention how you can help your client, highlight your possible input in their business.
3. Delete irrelevant information. If you worked as a waiter 15 years ago and you still have it on your UX Designer profile — consider twice whether you need this piece.
4. Create a custom link to your profile. LinkedIn allows changing the standard pre-defined version into a shorter and cleaner one. Customize the link to your name-surname.
5. Edit profile sections. Hide “People also viewed” not to lead to your competitors’ pages. Add skills sections for others to endorse you, or certificates if you have some to share.
6. In the skills section, move 3 most important to the top. Firstly, that’s how other people know about your specialization. Secondly, the first three skills are more likely to be endorsed.
7. Change grey company logos into real logos. If you worked for a smaller company or yourself, there’s probably no logo on LinkedIn for it. Google how to solve this issue.
8. Add media. LinkedIn allows adding portfolio samples, CV, demo reels, case studies, video links and many more. Use this to your advantage.

III. Share, Give, Add Value

LinkedIn isn’t the parallel reality, it’s a part of the good old real world. In it, people meet, talk, share their knowledge, add value to each other’s lives and businesses. Whenever you can, help other people from a professional perspective.

For example, you can write a recommendation for your colleague. You don’t need to ask for permission to compose some nice words or to endorse their skills on profile. Or you could answer some questions from a Junior colleague who approached you the other day. Besides, you could comment on someone’s posts with a link to a useful resource.

IV. Ask for Recommendations

Think of how you pick a new product on Amazon. You check the characteristics, and then you always take a look at the number of stars and reviews. That’s the way we’re wired now: we trust people we never met to help us make the decisions.

The common practice is to have 5+ recommendations on your profile. The more — the better. You may be shy to ask for a review of your work, or you might expect people to recognize your job even if you don’t ask for it. Well, the latter rarely happens.

To make it easier for you, here are the three main things to keep in mind:

1. Strike when the iron is hot. When you complete a project and the client writes you ‘thank you’ email. Or when you released a new version and your manager tells about your great contribution. Or it’s time for a quarterly report and you feel you did particularly well. These all could become good opportunities to ask for some positive feedback and make it publicly available.
2. Give a hint on what to highlight. People are busy. The higher the position, the busier they are. Even if writing a recommendation takes 5 minutes of their time, it’s still a lot. You can facilitate this process. Mention what you’d like to see in the recommendation. Don’t be pushy and leave the final decision to the writer.
3. Prepare the template for the future. This is the only advice from this article I don’t follow myself. Every time I start from scratch. Yet, the experts suggest you create a template once and then reuse it whenever you get a chance to receive another recommendation. It saves your time and doesn’t let you spend days thinking whether or not you should craft a new message.

V. Write

Yes, you might believe your portfolio and work experience speak for themselves. The truth is, they don’t. You are the megaphone of your expertise and your knowledge. Your perspective is unique, and everyone else isn’t necessarily familiar with what you know.

Take this article as an example. I mechanically follow these tips all the time. I don’t even think of them. To other people, this piece may be a source of a whole lot of new data.

What you can write:

1. Professional articles. On Medium, on your blog or here on LinkedIn Publisher. If you don’t know where to start, think of the questions people often ask you.
2. Posts. You can add images, videos, documents, presentations or leave the plain text as-is. This is a part of building your brand that could become one of your assets.
3. Share curated content. Don’t silently reshare it, add your point of view. Include what you learned from this source, and how the reader can benefit from checking it out.

VI. Constantly Build Your Network

I often see users with 20-180 connections. They could be well-established in the industry, yet resisting to add people they don’t know in person. Even though LinkedIn is a professional network, not Facebook or a closed Instagram account.

How many should you have? The rule of thumb is to add 501 connections. Then the platform starts showing you have 500+ connections, but not the exact number. Make sure you don’t connect with fake profiles, or with potential spammers. Google how to spot them.

Whom can you add? Think of your former and current colleagues. Attend a professional event and add the people you met. If you read an article or listened to a podcast, you can add a guest and write what you learned from them. You can also connect to your potential clients and follow their activities. Think of LinkedIn as of a perfect networking party for introverts where you have enough time to think of what to say.

VII. Here are Three Quick Tips with examples:

VIII. Additional resources

Of course, I can’t cover everything about LinkedIn in one article. If you’d like to explore more, you can follow Melonie Dodaro and check out the resources she shares. If you know Russian, check out Olga Yurchenko (both LinkedIn and Facebook).

Some funny jokes about LinkedIn are here on Twitter: The State of LinkedIn.

If this seems already overwhelming...

...or you can’t complete all at once, it’s okay. Take little steps now and then, develop your LinkedIn presence. Always remember to share, give and add value — and you’ll soon see the results you wished for.

The slides from the articles were designed by me, Nata Kostenko. If you would like me to help you structure the information and polish the visuals, write at design@natakostenko.com. Let’s chat about your goals and discover how I can help you achieve them.

Photos in the article by Jete-Maria Vürmer and Maido Parv.