LinkedIn, The Next Social Media Game Changer

You must be wondering why LinkedIn, and why not Instagram or other allied social tools. Let’s dive in:

LinkedIn has stood the test of time. They have been flexible in their approach and have adopted newer ways of functioning, but also stood firm on the fundamental principles on which the platform was built.?

Recently, I took a poll among my collegemates to figure out the odds. The poll was titled: if you had to scrap all social media except one, which would you keep? And, the choices were:

A. Facebook

B. Twitter

C. Instagram

D. Threads

E. LinkedIn

And, as it turned out – the maximum votes went to LinkedIn.?

The signs are obvious. You are best determined by the kind of company you keep. Likewise, the more time you spend on LinkedIn, the more profitable it is going to be. The Payoffs are incredible in three key areas:

Education?

• You can add certificates of completion and skills to your LinkedIn profile and share your learning achievements with your networks.
• You can join learning groups and engage with other like-minded learners who have similar career aspirations.
• You can showcase your skills, knowledge, experience, and projects you have worked on or are currently working on to potential employers or collaborators.

Leads for business and job roles

• You can use LinkedIn’s internal search engine to find jobs, companies, people, groups, services, courses, etc. related to your field and interests. You can also apply filters to narrow down your results and find more targeted leads.
• You can attend LinkedIn events that are relevant to your target clientele and learn more about their needs, doubts, and opinions. You can also approach the attendees of a specific event and personalize your outreach based on what you learned.
• You can use LinkedIn’s content features to find leads who engaged with a particular post, poll, article, or video. You can also create your own content to attract leads and showcase your expertise.

Build a strong personal brand and a wide network of diverse professionals

I’ll try to explain how LinkedIn helps one with personal branding. Personal branding is the process of creating and communicating a unique and memorable reputation for yourself as a professional. It helps you to differentiate yourself from others, attract more opportunities, and establish your authority and credibility in your field. LinkedIn is a great platform for personal branding because it allows you to:

• Showcase your profile, which is like your online resume, portfolio, and biography. You can use it to highlight your skills, achievements, experience, education, and interests. You can also add media, such as videos, images, articles, or presentations that demonstrate your work and expertise.
• Write articles on LinkedIn, which are like your own blog posts. You can use them to share your insights, opinions, and knowledge on topics related to your industry or niche. This can help you to establish yourself as a thought leader and an expert in your field.
• Post content on LinkedIn, which is like your social media posts. You can use them to engage with your audience, share valuable information, or entertain them. You can use different formats, such as text, image, video, poll, or live stream to diversify your content.

By using these features of LinkedIn, you can create and communicate your personal brand to the world. You can also use LinkedIn analytics or other tools to measure and improve your personal brand performance.?

In fact, it's predicted - LinkedIn is like what Facebook was in 2014. Facebook is getting noisier and less action there these days with Insta and Threads taking over. LinkedIn is also blurring the lines between education and infotainment. That too, with the addition of the 'laughing out loud' (smiley) - a lot of funny memes and jokes are also getting passed over. So, even on LinkedIn - you got to sieve and cut through the noise to get value. But the best part is a LinkedIn algorithm (with the aid of machine learning) understands your professional needs better than any other social media tool. Based on your interactions, comments, posts, etc – relevant feeds start showing up.

LinkedIn is not just a place to find your dream job, but a way to be better at the job you already have.” – Jeff Weiner.