3 WINNING TIPS FOR LINKEDIN

February 16, 2016 Social media, Industry news

With the masses somewhat fearing the dark lairs of LinkedIn and hiding from the worry that their employer will automatically assume they are seeking new work (396 million users looking for work?), please rest assured this is not the sole purpose for LinkedIn. Below our Roomies showcase just three of the benefits of making the shift into digital when it comes to your career.

1. Industry, industry, industry!
With the average user spending just slightly over four minutes per visit, it is crucial one uses their time wisely. Quite cunningly, LinkedIn has molded their networking platform to extend past stalking of former colleagues and looking super sophisticated to onlookers on public transport, to further provide a greater effective tool for the workplace and to encourage involvement. LinkedIn grants users the ability to customize what news they are delivered at the click of a mouse. Depending on aspects such as the industry one works, the articles a user engages with and who is in your network, your daily news feed is perfectly sculptured to fit what you should know about your area of work. It offers an invaluable lesson by established and reputable industry ‘influencers’ on a variety of discussion points and allows you to engage in the conversation as well. If you play your cards right, it is very possible to depict your online persona as educated and curious by engaging in your own discussion which can, in turn, develop into a sort of alliance in the industry which could be invaluable one day.

2. Develop a brand you are proud of.
It shows up at the top of Google searches when someone searches the web for your name. If you don’t believe me you could even try it. That’s impressive. Slightly scary as well, maybe. According to Gravitate Online’s study that critically analysed upwards of 8 million clicks, it was found that fewer than 6% of users clicked past the second page, with the alarming majority of users (94%) navigating from the first page. LinkedIn enables, if used wisely, a professional and significant pitching point for potential employers. It allows one to showcase past and present business ventures and to exemplify your career greats and expertise. There is, of course still a strong presence and necessity for a CV, so your profile shouldn’t necessarily replicate it- it should (and can) show what can’t be confined to a simple PDF or Word document. LinkedIn now offers the feature for embedding videos and images into your experience fields and summary to further highlight and present a representation you are proud of.

3. A great and contemporary career strategy
This one might be an obvious one. By creating a profile you’re #proud of, you will be approached by recruiters. It also gives you a glimpse of how industry professionals are utilising their time- is there a course or certificate you should add to your CV? Are you riding the wave or are you facing an inevitable, looming mighty embarrassing crash ahead? LinkedIn gives an up to date snapshot of the industry and even subtly suggests where it’s heading. For the more determined job hunter, LinkedIn quite generously offers a job seeker capability, granting the user a free 30 day premium trial ($29.99 monthly following this), enabling the job hungry user to be featured above non-premium users when applying for jobs, swiftly garnering favourable attention of the poster. For the employed user, companies are now also sneakily actively making the shift to target those already in work (passive candidates they’re called). These companies are prepared to offer a higher salary for these select few by promising a more fulfilling and desirable work environment for the acquirement of the passive candidates skills. Win win?

We really could go on and on parading the potential of LinkedIn, but we’ll stop there at three. If you are curious about how your business could benefit from social media involvement, don’t hesitate to get in contract with our follow worthy team at theroom. You could even connect with us if you’d like- just click here!