Co-written with Angela Natividad
I know a lot of people (myself included) who look at LinkedIn as a virtual resume–only to be opened and updated whenever the user graduates or gets a new job. But for the past few months, freelancers and marketers have been telling me that a considerable chunk of their clients come from LinkedIn. This got me interested to join LEADimpact Asia Inc.’s workshop on LinkedIn.Â
The trainer, Virginia Bautista, is the first and only LinkedIn Trainer & Consultant based in the Philippines. Virginia has been featured twice in Forbes magazine for her experience and skills in leveraging LinkedIn in building a powerful personal brand that attracts endless career opportunities.
Virginia started the workshop by defining the term, “leverage,” which is “to use (something) to maximum advantage.” It’s not good enough to use LinkedIn. You have to leverage it. Through inbound marketing, you can get clients without actively chasing them. How? “You can make LinkedIn do the job for you,” she explained.
5.) Even before starting with LinkedIn, figure out your own personal brand.
Your personal brand would affect the words and photos you put on your profile, so it’s important to figure this out beforehand. Brands shouldn’t just sell products and services. They have to tell a story.
Virgina shared three some questions you can ask yourself to help you build your own personal brand:
- What was the most successful project I ever tackled, and what made me successful?
- What was the most important team role I ever fulfilled and why?
- When faced with an overwhelming obstacle, what’s my go-to skill to overcome it?
- What are the strengths that others acknowledge in me?
- What will I be doing in five years?
4.)Â Create content to be recognized.
Given your own set of skills and strengths, how can you help others? What can you offer to people? Using your own stories of successes and failures, create content to help others. This is a better way of getting recognized compared to simply posting about your most recent achievements.
For example, Virigina was once a freelance writer who successfully used LinkedIn to gain clients. She was featured on Forbes, where she gave tips to other freelancers on how they can use LinkedIn, too. Because of this, the people who benefited from her article shared her tips to their own networks.
The more you contribute to the community with helpful content, the more you become recognized.
3.) Keywords are key.
Let’s say you’ve decided on what your personal brand is. What keywords do you use to make yourself discoverable on search engines? It can’t be too specific because you need keywords that people would actually type on Google.
But once you’ve decided on your keywords, you must use these keywords in your profile’s headline and summary. Your goal on LinkedIn is to be discoverable and to slowly build your own tribe. That’s why keywords are important.
2.) Make small tweaks to the settings.
These small tweaks can eventually make a big difference.
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- If you want to indicate that you are open to job opportunities to recruiters on LinkedIn, you use this in your settings:
- Only the first two lines on your profile are automatically viewable. The rest are hiden by the “See more” button. But the first two lines have to be gripping enough to make the viewer want to click the “See more” button. Aside from your keywords, the first two lines have to show how you can help the person viewing your profile.
- Your headline in LinkedIn doesn’t have to be a company, especially if the company isn’t established yet. Those two lines must contain your keywords and must show that you can help your potential client.
- If you type an asterisk on the search bar in the upper right corner of your home page, you can view a list of your first, second, and third connections.
1.) Establish a strategy and a schedule.
As with any social media platform, it’s important to establish a strategy and a schedule. You don’t just post randomly and hope things would fall into their proper place.
Virginia shared a very thorough and helpful checklist of the things you can do daily, weekly, and monthly to help you grow your brand on LinkedIn,
Virginia’s workshop was insightful. I appreciate how she gave practical tips we can apply immediately, but also gave us guide questions to process about personal branding and building our own networks.
Thank you for inviting WhenInManila.com to your event with Virginia, LEADimpact Asia!
