9 Tips to Get the Most Out of LinkedIn

LinkedIn started back in 2002 with only 4,500 members, and has since become the world's largest professional network. LinkedIn now has over 175m professional members world-wide, over 25m in the Asia Pacific Region and over 5 m in Australia, providing a great platform to network with other professionals.

Why use LinkedIn?

• For job seekers - It"s a great tool for job seekers to find jobs within their network, through the job search functionality or even by being head-hunted
• For Recruiters and HR - LinkedIn is now one of the favourite tools used by recruiters to locate potential candidates
• For marketing – many organisations are now using Linkedin to promote their business to relevant sales prospects, or to maintain contact with existing customers. By creating a 'Group' you can share content, post jobs and network with other members. Advertising on LinkedIn also provides a highly targeted method of reaching your ideal customer with the detailed demographic information supplied by members allowing for accurate segmentation
• For sales – Sales professionals are able to locate specific individuals within targeted companies and send InMails or request an introduction through one of their existing connections.

9 tips to ensure you get the most out of your LinkedIn experience:

1. Your profile – This is essentially an online version of your resume, with options to include previous experience, education and professional skills. The key here is to ensure your 'profile completeness' is 100% as this means you will have a higher ranking on search results (this includes ensuring you post a professional looking picture and having 'recommendations'). Also, ensure you use relevant keywords throughout your profile in order to optimise the rankings in search results. You are also able to modify permission levels of what people can and can't see in your profile.
2. Use LinkedIn to learn more about people you’ve just met or are about to meet. This is a great tool to remember names of people you've just met and to maintain contact. If you're meeting a sales prospect, it also helps to do a little research on that individual to see what their interests are, what their background is to assist in building rapport during the meeting.
3. Make the most of your headline – Use keywords to describe your profile or your objective in addition to your current position e.g. Aspiring sales professional seeking new opportunity or Marketing | Digital Marketing Expert | Editor
4. Update your status and post articles/work achievements on a regular basis – This will give your profile more exposure and will show your network about your achievements and that you're actively researching the latest best practices in the industry
5. Increase your connections – Use the integration services available to connect with your personal contacts and invite them to connect on Linkedin. Regularly check 'people you may know' as Linkedin will automatically rank people according to common connections within your existing network
6. Join Groups – Some groups offer valuable industry relevant content and the opportunity to connect with other group members. If you can't find a group, you can always create your own
7. Share your knowledge to earn credibility – By using the "Answers" search box, you can find relevant questions posted by people, giving you the opportunity to utilise your knowledge. The poster gets to vote on the best answer. Gaining credibility may be a great way to increase your connections to influential people in your industry or niche.
8. Create a Company Page - LinkedIn allows you to create a page for your business and link it to your personal profile. This gives you the opportunity to promote what you are doing professionally.
9. Create a resume in minutes – By using LinkedIn's Resume Builder you can create a professional resume in minutes. You are able to pick a wide range of templates, instantly extract work history information from your Linked profile, edit the information, and finally share your resume.

Michael Crump Michael has worked in the education industry for over 10 years, with institutions such as The University of Sydney, Study Group and Upskilled. Michael is passionate about online learning and technology and believes strongly in ensuring education is available to all Australians no matter what their situation.