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What We Learned in #31DaysOfLinkedIn

Finished up the 31 Days on the road, click the video to see where I broadcasted from!

The main goal of this #31DaysOfLinkedIn project was to learn how to use the platform better for ourselves and our clients. We decided to do this in an open and sharing way through live stream broadcasts and daily blogposts so you could come along on the journey as well. This words below and the video above won’t go into a lot of technical strategy ideas, those are in the links at the bottom, and they can best be summed up in a, “Why the heck aren’t we all doing better at this thing?!?” statement. Read on…

The major steps to success on LinkedIn

Be active. It should go without saying that no one can be successful at anything if they aren’t active at it. If you “set and forget” your LinkedIn profile, you only have yourself to blame when it comes to inactivity. Since few folks, including your peers and competition, are active on a daily basis on LinkedIn, it is a wide open field of potential for you. If you want to lead your industry, your geographic region, or groups, you can easily do so. The opportunity is there and waiting for you to take it!

Stay active. Say you have spent, I don’t know, 31 days being active on LinkedIn and you haven’t landed a million-dollar deal or a dozen new leads from your activity. What should you do? Keep at it. Because of the inactive audiences of LinkedIn you will have to put in some time and frame your content around education, information, or entertainment to carve out your niche and attract legitimate attention from connections. Stick with it for 62 or 93 or however may days it takes to build your successes…and then keep at it after the fact.

Be consistent. When we say you need to be active, you need to be active. Set a schedule for your LinkedIn activity and stick to it. Make Monday the day you post and interact with your Groups and Thursday the day you publish to Pulse if it works for you. We would never advise you to do something on all of the tools of LinkedIn every day, but do something with all of them as often as you can. If you aren’t consistent with you activity, your connections will start not seeing your content in their newsfeeds and you will be back to where you are now.

Be professional. As we discussed early in the 31 Days, LinkedIn is not the place for your family photos, your #MotivationMonday posts, or your “funny” memes. Stick to content which your professional audience of connections will want to see. They are all on Facebook and Instagram and Tumblr as well and have already seen your jokes. If they are on Reddit, they actually saw it a week before you did.

A big secret to success on LinkedIn

Interact with others. The four points above will get your further down the road of LinkedIn success than the sitting around and doing nothing with the platform you are probably doing at this moment. A point to take your success to the next level is to interact with the posts, Blogs, Groups, and other content you encounter on the platform (all platforms actually). Share then Like content you encounter and comment on pieces to which you can add your unique perspective. Doing so will help you build your reputation, will help you to make more connections, and help those connections to be encouraged to interact with your content when you publish it.

I’ll have to say 31 days is not nearly enough time to become any sort of (alleged) expert at LinkedIn. Heck, it’s only 7.4{1ccf3f7051f621f207bf0b5abe66fecd9fcbebd6ccca57cd81eaf6422f6a0a70} of the 10,000 hours Gladwell says you need to have to become and expert in anything.

Now that I have said that, I do feel, at the very least, more committed to the LinkedIn platform and look forward to connecting with you there, helping you if I can, and seeing you launch your own success story with it. If there are any remaining questions or challenges you have with LinkedIn, or any other marketing platform, reach out and let’s talk about them together.

If you missed any of the #31DaysOfLinkedIn posts, they are all linked at the bottom of this page. Please feel free to hit the share buttons to the side of this content to share any of these pages with your own fans, followers, and connections, so they might find the help they are looking for as well!

I appreciate you checking out this effort. What do you want to talk about next?!?

The #31DaysOfLinkedIn Posts from @RocketGroup

#31DaysOfLinkedIn – Introduction and Recap

A Look at LinkedIn Endorsements and Recommendations

Add Project Details to Your LinkedIn

Advertising on LinkedIn

Building Relationships on LinkedIn

Comparing LinkedIn Audiences to Other Social Platforms through @GaryVee

Educate, Inform, and Entertain Yourself with LinkedIn Groups

Job Seeking on LinkedIn

Kids, LinkedIn is for Professional Stuff

LinkedIn Premium: How Do They Work?

LinkedIn Pulse on LinkedIn

LinkedIn: Connect with the Right People, the Right Way

Manage Your LinkedIn Activities

Optimize Your LinkedIn Headline

Pay Attention on LinkedIn

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

Should LinkedIn Be Fun?

Spread Out Your LinkedIn Posts

Taking LinkedIn to the Real World

To Pay or Not to Pay for LinkedIn

Use the LinkedIn Daily

Want to Get Found on LinkedIn?

What We Learned During #31DaysOfLinkedIn

Who Viewed My LinkedIn Profile?

Your LinkedIn Likes/Dislikes/Challenges

Gus Wagner

Gus Wagner is the President.Owner of The Rocket Group – an award-winning marketing and communications firm. The Rocket Group has specialized in building effective tools across traditional means and new media for clients in businesses, organizations, and nonprofits since 2001. Gus is also a five-time certified Social Media Strategist, a former Chief of Staff in the Missouri State Senate, a retired national champion amateur hockey coach, and a would like to be a singer/songwriter. His Welsh Corgi, Taffy, lets Gus and his wife, Farrah Fite, live with her in Jefferson City, Missouri.