You don’t have to spend hours every day and week on LinkedIn to have an impact on not only who’s checking your profile out, but how many people are engaging with you and your content. I have seen this routine in many variations and many places, most recently from LinkedIn expert Wayne Breitbarth, but it’s generally the same six actions that generate the most action on your LinkedIn profile. Keep reading to see how I boosted my views by 350% in just two months!
When I was working full time as a marketing manager, my time was spent equally on several platforms, including Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, YouTube and LinkedIn. When I got laid off in the middle of July this year due to COVID impacting company sales, I decided to make a change and focus the bulk of my efforts on LinkedIn. You can see from the image above that my views increased dramatically at that point.
I had to be smart about it though, because you only have so much time in a day or week to do things that aren’t directly job hunting related (like applying for jobs or reaching out to recruiters). So I boiled all my research down into six general categories.
- Profile Views
- Connection Requests
- Notifications
- Messages
- Comments/Likes
- Share/Repost
It generally takes me about 15 minutes a day, Monday through Friday, to go through all six of these categories. It will take you longer in the beginning as you get used to doing these six things, but you will speed up the more you do it. I like to call it the LI-15 and I put it on my daily To Do list to make it a regular habit and part of my routine.
So let’s break each one down into a simple task.
Profile Views: I used to not really know what to do with profile views other than be happy when somebody from a company I was interested in or doing a job I would like to be doing looked at my profile. It usually ended right there for me. I was too nervous or timid to reach out to these folks, but really that’s silly. Everybody who uses LinkedIn knows that you can decide how much of your profile to show to somebody when you check out their profile and also knows that people know when you look at them. Now, I review all those profile views and decide if I’m going to reach out to them. If they are working for a company and in an industry related to my interests or where I’d like to work, I’ll reach out to them and put in a connection request. Pro Tip: Always add a personalized note! I will add a note to my connection request and say something like, “Hey there Bob! Thanks for checking out my profile. I see that you work in the entertainment industry, a field I’m very interested in. I’d love to connect with a fellow creative and share resources. Have a great day!”. More often than not, you will connect with that person and hopefully start a dialogue with them. The more people you add to your connections, the wider your network gets and the more content you see in your feed from the 2nd and 3rd level connections, so it’s a win/win.
Connection Requests: I try to send out at least five new connection requests each day, each with personalized notes. There are a variety of ways to find new people to connect with, but the easiest is to check out the suggested connections on your “My Network” page. Pro Tip: Don’t just click on the connect button here. Open their profile in a new window and always select “add a note” option. You have a much better chance of connecting with someone when you include a personalized note instead of just a generic connection request.
Notifications: This area of your profile is a treasure trove of opportunities to engage with your network and also to find potentially relevant articles to share in your feed. LinkedIn will alert you to posts that your contacts have shared that are getting extra engagement or let you know if somebody new has viewed your profile. Trending topics are often mentioned here along with a link to an article typically from a LinkedIn editor, but sometimes from your network. Checking this every day gives you the opportunity to engage with your feed and also be seen as a source of information and a knowledgeable person on certain topics.
Messages: Many folks never check their messages and I think this is a missed opportunity. Sometimes your network will privately message you when it’s a topic they don’t want to discuss publicly in the feed. Other times you can get InMail messages from recruiters or other people looking to hire you for your skills or reach out about a potential job. Sometimes you can move a conversation from the feed into a private messages conversation if you want to get into the nitty gritty of something or talk more concrete details like pricing or confidential details.
Comments/Likes: Once I have gone through my notifications and gone to specific posts to like or comment, I will then hit the “Home” button and scroll through my feed checking for posts or articles that are of interest to me or could be of interest to the kinds of people who could be future clients of mine. I also like to check in on my network and make sure to like or comment on posts that are status updates about new jobs or anniversaries or requests for leads when you’ve been laid off or furloughed. I’m seeing a lot more of these lately (and I also fall into that group!).
Share/Repost: I will typically schedule one post a day on all my social media accounts that goes out in the morning. While I am scrolling through my Home feed and checking out notifications, I always keep an eye out for at least one more article each day that I can share that I think will provide some value to my network and if I can, I will provide some context as to why I am sharing a particular article or post. This shows thought leadership as well as keeping your name out there in the feed as a trusted industry resource.
I know this seems like a lot to take in, but you really can do it all in fifteen minutes a day once you have your routine in place. I have a sticky note on my wall that boils this down to the bare essence. Once you have done it enough times, you can simply just look at your list and go down, ticking each one off and be done in 15 minutes.
Good luck! Leave a comment below if you found this helpful and SHARE if you think somebody else will find this useful.
Tai Freligh offers digital marketing and social media services through his company Tai Freligh Consulting, as well as tips, exclusive entertainment interviews and the occasional dog and cat picture. Catch me on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn on my Tai Freligh Consulting company page. You can also drop a connection request to me on my LinkedIn profile.