By Bill Corbett, President, Corbett Public Relations and Founder of Grow Your Personal Brand
As 2014 begins, it’s a good time to take a step back and reflect on your personal branding efforts in 2013. Did you achieve your goals? How active have you been on LinkedIn? Have you generated new business from LinkedIn? If you aren’t satisfied with your answers to those questions then you need to change what you are doing and take a better look at your LinkedIn profile. LinkedIn is the number one social networking website for business professionals and others looking to generate new opportunities. The following are 5 LinkedIn Resolutions You Need To Make for 2014:
1. Commit to investing 1 hour per week on LinkedIn activities – You need to create a schedule in advance and block out a certain time period for you to work on your LinkedIn activities. Schedule posts ahead of time by using a social media aggregator such a Hootsuite to save time. Once your posts are scheduled go into your groups and facilitate discussion and engage with other group members. An investment of an hour a week will be beneficial to growing your personal brand.
2. Connect with others – Make weekly or monthly goals of how many people you want to reach out and connect with. Connections are valuable on LinkedIn. The more you have and the better you know them the more valuable they are. LinkedIn is a great way to increase the size of your network.
3. Maximize you profile – Make sure to update and maximize your profile so that it is easier for prospects to find you and so it clearly identifies why someone would want to work with you. A maximized profile is the strongest asset you can have on LinkedIn. If you profile is poor or is missing information then you could be missing out on potential prospects.
4. Be seen – Make sure you stay top of mind among your connections. Use status updates several times each week. In your updates discuss what you are doing, what projects you are working on and share relevant and interesting articles related to your industry.
5. Facilitate recommendations – Recommendations are one of the most important parts of your LinkedIn profile. You should accumulate as many recommendations as you can. One way to do this is by giving recommendations to others and then asking for one in return. The more recommendations you have the better.
By implementing these LinkedIn resolutions you can be confident in your LinkedIn profile and this will lead to building stronger relationships and future business development. LinkedIn is a power tool. Make 2014 the year you get the most out of your LinkedIn profile.
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