If there is any one secret to success on LinkedIn, it is to avoid the “set and forget” trap which many of your peers and competitors fall into. Set yourself a schedule and adhere to it for greater success.
What a LinkedIn content and interaction schedule looks like
Any journey begins by looking at a map and quickly tossing it away, right? Wrong.
Any successful journey begins by creating a map which defines the twists and turns and steps you will take to reach your goal successfully. A journey of content creation and interaction on LinkedIn is no different.
Let’s look at various steps you can towards greater success on LinkedIn in a day, a week, a month, and a year:
Daily activities for LinkedIn success
Review the LinkedIn Newsfeed. What content from your connections who actually post to LinkedIn can you interact with. Like stuff which deserves a Like, comment on posts which you can add value to, and share posts which more of your connections can find value in. This is how networking is done.
Check Connection requests. You never know when the next $1000 or $1,000,000 million connection is in your inbox. The more days which go by between you checking for requests reduce the value of those future connections. I used to be in the habit of only checking these on Monday mornings. That was dumb. I can’t say I missed out on any business but I doubt any connection would tell me that.
Post to the Newsfeed. Be one of the proactive connections who actually post content to LinkedIn. Stick to content that educates, informs, or entertains your connections. Go easy on the entertaining as well. And leave the selly-selly crap for a real world interaction. Also: use images if you can in these posts. Images get much higher interaction that words on a screen.
LinkedIn isn’t the place for your motivational quote posters. Trust me on this.
Answer your In-Mail. Connections, and some folks who would like to be your connections, will send you messages through your LinkedIn In-Mail. Check for this and reply promptly to messages which deserve to be responded to. Delete the sales stuff and spam stuff.
Watch your Groups. By now you’ve joined a few targeted LinkedIn Groups. Be active in them so others will continue to be as well. Share your content sporadically and take the time to comment, like, and share others content more frequently. They will do unto you as you have done unto them.
Weekly activities for LinkedIn success
Post to Pulse. Or Publisher or whatever you want to call it. Use the blogging tool on LinkedIn to get your evergreen content from your website or other media sources out in front of all of your connections. They will all get a red flag, depending on their settings, saying you published something. You’ll get a notification of who actually went and read, or, at least, looked at, the piece. It’s a winning combination.
Review connections: Check to make sure you haven’t connected with some hucksters selling flim-flam, connections who have gone on that great networking party in the sky, or, even worse, committed crimes or made career decisions which you don’t want to be associated with. Your connections and their level of closeness to you are highly public and can possibly create bad first impressions to those meeting you online for the first time.
Endorse others. My mind has been changed here, and I no longer dismiss the prompts to endorse whomever for whatever. Yes, it is a simple click and there are stronger actions to take but it does help in the search to have skills and profiles connected. Again, they may do the same for you.
Listen to competition. What are they up to? Nothing? Make sure you don’t inspire them with your actions to get busy and start copying you. Remember: Defense is more important in the game than offense.
Use your Brand Page. Another thing you played “set and forget” with, right? Same here. Get out there and upload some content and keep it fresh. These pages are great in real world SEO outside of LinkedIn.
Monthly activities for LinkedIn success
Updates needed. Check your personal profile and company page for any updates which may need to be made. Change your phone number, website, or Twitter handle? Change it here as well. Having everything up to date here will help you when that one big connection comes through!
Project status. Use the project feature here to tout projects, of any size, which show what you do and who you worked with to succeed. It’s even better if you have images, links, or videos to add to the project details.
Tout others. We mentioned endorsements above but I am talking about making out of the blue LinkedIn recommendations here. Know a connection you worked with years, months, or weeks ago? Give them a heartfelt and professional recommendation. It will go a long way further than some random endorsement for their spelling or math skills. Plus, it’s an awesome and right thing to do!
Yearly activities for LinkedIn success
New Pic(s). Your LinkedIn profile photo should reflect what you actually professionally look like. If it is years out of date, doesn’t reflect the profession you are in, or isn’t something someone can use to find you in real life, well, it is time for a change. Stay away from the standard driver’s license photo with the bland backdrop and go outside and have someone take a couple great pics of you. Use them and repeat the cycle next year.
Top, down. Start at the top of your personal profile and your company page and update, delete, or edit what needs to be changed. Add achievements, change your employee size, and/or your leadership roles. Whatever changed or occurred in the previous year which you didn’t already cover, update it now.
What would you add to these daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly activities which have brought you success on LinkedIn? Feel free to share them in the comments below or on social media with the #31DaysOfLinkedIn #!
I greatly appreciate you reading this far down the page and look forward to seeing all of your updates and increased activity on LinkedIn!
The #31DaysOfLinkedIn Posts from @RocketGroup
#31DaysOfLinkedIn – Introduction and Recap
A Look at LinkedIn Endorsements and Recommendations
Add Project Details to Your LinkedIn
Building Relationships on LinkedIn
Comparing LinkedIn Audiences to Other Social Platforms through @GaryVee
Educate, Inform, and Entertain Yourself with LinkedIn Groups
Kids, LinkedIn is for Professional Stuff
LinkedIn Premium: How Do They Work?
LinkedIn: Connect with the Right People, the Right Way
Manage Your LinkedIn Activities
Optimize Your LinkedIn Headline
Professionally Mingling on LinkedIn
Recruiting and Hiring on LinkedIn
Say No to the Default on LinkedIn
Setting a Schedule for LinkedIn Activity
Share (Professional) Stuff on LinkedIn
Sharing and Getting Shared on LinkedIn
Sharing Content on LinkedIn Effectively
Spread Out Your LinkedIn Posts
Taking LinkedIn to the Real World
To Pay or Not to Pay for LinkedIn
Want to Get Found on LinkedIn?
What We Learned During #31DaysOfLinkedIn
