What is LinkedIn and How to Use LinkedIn Effectively?

LinkedIn is the strong social network platform for professionals. LinkedIn is the best platform for all those who want to share their professional profile for career, jobs and business with the world.

People add their personal information on LinkedIn, such as where they live, what is their education, what is their job experience, what company are they working in, etc.

Maximum companies have profiles on LinkedIn and their employees also have profiles on LinkedIn. Through which they are connected to each other. When any vacancy occurs in any company, most companies post on LinkedIn.

LinkedIn is the world’s largest professional relationship management tool and it’s the best tool to find professionals.

LinkedIn is mostly used for job search and job posting in the world. You can use LinkedIn to recommend a job, using it you can offer jobs to other people and also you can see which company has posted the job on LinkedIn. If any job matches your profile, you can apply.  

Why You Should Use LinkedIn?

Today more than 500 million people are using LinkedIn. It’s the world’s largest B2B platform. B2B means business to business. LinkedIn is also used for lead generation as the users on LinkedIn is very professional and active. When you have to tell to business about any product or services, apart from the consumer then you can use LinkedIn.

With LinkedIn, you can easily make your business contacts and make your identity in the professional world. It’s essential to use LinkedIn in today’s era because LinkedIn reveals your professional status.

For student and job seekers, LinkedIn profile works as a digital CV. Many times it happens that companies send job invitations after viewing your LinkedIn profile. So if you are a student or looking for a job, LinkedIn can prove to be beneficial for you.

As a job hunter, as a marketer or as a professional, LinkedIn is very important for your professional growth. As a business owner you can promote your business on LinkedIn. 

How to Make an Effective LinkedIn Profile?

Whether you are a student, job seeker or a business, your profile on LinkedIn is a showcase where you can share your information so that users can get to know you better. Make the LinkedIn profile perfect so that your professional image looks very attractive.

If you have not created an account on LinkedIn, create an account. Creating an account on LinkedIn is easy. To create an account on LinkedIn type “linkedin sign up” on the browser and click on first link.  You will see such screen.

Click on join now. Then enter your name, email id and keep a strong password and click on Agree & Join button. Now you have to fill your profile information. Here i will tell you about the important things only.

Choose Right Interest:

Whenever you create your profile on LinkedIn, first of all set your own goal. Choose your right interest. If you are looking for a job then you can select “finding a job” otherwise choose “building my professional network.”

Profile Picture:

When you put your profile picture on LinkedIn, keep it casual.  Remember do not use your passport size photo, do not put too serious and too cool photo.

Effective Headline:

Headline is the initial description of your profile. It’s the centerpiece of your profile. When someone searches you on LinkedIn, they will first see your headline description. Overall, here you have to tell about your achievements, tell your characteristics and you have to write something that creates curiosity in people towards you. To build your identity, use words that people are looking for and that can inspire people.

Profile Summary:

People here would like to know your story. In this, you have to describe your professional history. You can write, where you started your professional career, what are you doing, what do you want to do etc.

Experience:

In which company you have worked, how many years you worked and what was your role.  Overall, here you have to present your total experience in an effective way.

Skills:

Identify the skills that are your top skills and mention only those skills in which you are proficient.  My suggestion is that you should mention between 5 to 10 skills only, so that anyone can endorsement to you easily. Endorsement means that someone confirms your skills that you have these skills.

Complete Profile:

Many people create their profiles and leave incomplete, causing a negative impression. When you create a LinkedIn profile, you should complete your profile 100%.  So that the viewers can get complete information about you. This makes search ability easy.

Customized LinkedIn URL:

When you create a profile on LinkedIn, you can create a customized LinkedIn URL by clicking on “edit public profile & url” in the right side of home screen. You can use this URL in your email signature, twitter or visiting card so that people can easily find you on LinkedIn.

Connections:

Just as we send a friend request on Facebook and our friend list keeps growing, similarly we send a connection request on LinkedIn and grow our professional network. Whenever you send a connection request, do not send an empty message, send a connection request with a personalize message. So that you get maximum response. In this way your professional network will grow, which will increase the opportunities and also your growth prospects.

Recommendations:

When you’re on LinkedIn and someone recommended you, your credibility increases. So whenever someone praises your work, you should request them to leave a recommendation. This will enhance your profile.

How to Grow Your LinkedIn Connection?

1. On the home screen, you will see the option “My Network” click on it, now click on “More options” on the left side of the home screen, then a search bar will appear in which enter your regular email id and click on continue. You will see the email id of all the people who have contacted you through this email id and all the people you have contacted. Send them email to increase your connection.
2. You can collect the email id of professionals related to your field and invite them directly.
3. To increase contacts on LinkedIn, you can also join different types of groups.
4. LinkedIn itself recommends some profiles, which you probably know. I suggest that if they are related to your field and you know them, then you should send them a connection request.  

This way you can increase your connection on LinkedIn. I hope you liked this post. If you have any questions, you can comment. I will always try my best to reply to you.

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