One of the concerns we hear often from clients is the time something takes to complete online, particularly when it comes to marketing. We try our best to share a few tasks each time we meet to prevent our clients from feeling overwhelmed by yet another to-do list, and often one that comes with a steep learning curve.
We know everyone is busy (that’s how we have jobs!). We also know that part of our role as a marketing partner means we occasionally have to ask clients to participate in their marketing to make it as successful as possible. So in the same vein as our DIY social media series, we thought it might be helpful to offer time-bound, segmented marketing tasks that anyone (really, anyone) can complete. Let’s start with a platform that many of our clients still only know as a job-seeking platform – LinkedIn.LinkedIn is a great tool for business-to-business marketing, networking, benchmarking, competitor sleuthing, and yes, hiring. However, just like every other online presence, LinkedIn requires a solid effort to establish a reputation and demands maintenance from time to time. If this sounds intimidating, have no fear. We’ve suggested some key and impactful activities below that can be completed while you wait for your next cup of coffee to cool.
If You Have 5 Minutes
Login Just So You Remember Your Password
We joke. Kind of. It is important to login and change your password if it’s been awhile. Make sure your contact information on the account is still current.
Like, Comment, or Share a Connection’s Post
What’s the point of being on a platform if you don’t use it? LinkedIn is a place designed to connect with colleagues, partners, employees, and networkers. When someone shares an article that interests you, a post that stirs a reaction from you, or asks a question you can answer, take a few moments to share the post with your network or address their post. Engaging with their thoughts and ideas will help to nurture a relationship or potentially lead to a business opportunity. Not a bad ROI for 5 minutes!
Accept Pending Connection Requests
Use your discretion. You certainly aren’t obligated to accept every single connection request you receive, but if you actually know a person in real life (and don’t have a reason to avoid contact), consider accepting their request. Spammers or open networkers won’t mind an ignored request, but a mentor or customer might take notice.
If You Have 10-15 Minutes
Audit Your Profile
This sounds like a big chore, and definitely one that will take hours, right? Nope. Use one of the many resources out there (a couple of suggestions here and here) to make sure you make notes of what your profile might be lacking or ways you might be able to improve based on the knowledge of the pros. Note: you don’t have to make these changes yet, but writing down the plan for change helps lay out a strategy that you can tackle later (and around here, we are BIG fans of strategy when it comes to social media).
Spell Check Your Profile
Spelling errors online, especially on a professional network, are cringe-worthy. It communicates a lack of competence or, worse, a lack of effort. If you don’t care enough to run your profile text through Word or Grammarly, why should any prospects care enough to ask your professional opinion on something?
Write an Update
With five minutes, you interacted with someone else’s thoughts. Now, it’s time to write your own (grammatically correct) post. Share an inspirational quote, industry question, helpful tip or resource, or celebrate a business success or milestone.
Post in a Group
Similar to sharing an update, you can go to one of your groups and either respond to a question from someone else or ask a question of your own. Active and relevant groups can be great resources for information and advice.
If You Have 30-45 Minutes
Find Contacts Who Aren’t Yet Connections
LinkedIn will often prompt you to do just this. You can use your email contact list as a starting point to see who might be on the platform who isn’t already a connection. You can also search by company, previous workplaces, networking groups, or alma maters.
Improve Your Profile
Remember that audit list you made when you had 10-15 free minutes? Now is when you attack an item or two on the list. Improve your headline (this might take you the whole 45 minutes if you haven’t gone through this exercise before). Rephrase your experience. Just make progress on that list.
Read 2-3 Pulse Posts From Influencers or Connections
Pulse posts are essentially blog posts contained within LinkedIn. There are a variety of topic channels you can browse. If you’re looking for inspiration, answers, or just killing some time, Pulse posts are a great option.
If You Have an Hour or More
First, kudos. Not everyone finds an hour of free time in a day (side note: please teach us your ways!). But if, on the off-chance you can schedule this time maybe once a month, here are some excellent recommendations for supercharging your profile.
Write a Pulse Post
Hey, you know what these are because you’ve read posts from others and subscribed to channels that interest you. But – you have knowledge to share, too! Impart your wisdom in an industry or on a topic with your network and beyond (if you write great content, your post might be served out to an audience you aren’t connected with!). These posts help build your subject matter expert authority.
Share Multimedia
Video. Video. Video. Have you heard us talk about video this year? It’s everywhere. LinkedIn, too. The difference here is that there isn’t (yet) a native option. Meaning, you will need to link to the video hosted somewhere else. The easiest integration is a video you’ve uploaded to YouTube. That can be shared directly on your profile. As far as video topics, well, the possibilities are endless. We’re here if you need us.
Create a Slideshare
Most everyone loves a good presentation. And, most business folks are comfortable with creating a presentation. Why let good information go to waste? Share your hard work and smarts with your network AND Google slideshares can be a great SEO boost).
So, there you have it. Ways to improve your LinkedIn profile and results in as little as 5 minutes.
If you made it all the way to this point in the post, you had 5-10 free minutes…next time you know you can use the time to make a dent in your LinkedIn to-do list!
