Every professional has heard about LinkedIn. Be it professional or a businessman, a LinkedIn presence is a must. But first, why all the fuss about being on LinkedIn?

For those who are not aware – LinkedIn is the world’s largest network of Professionals and a place to find the right job, or internship, connect with other professionals, learn skills and advance your career. Since 2018 LinkedIn is growing at the rate of 2 new members per second.

With more than 590 million members, LinkedIn helps to connect with professionals and business owners worldwide and can open doors in unexpected places. Hence it is vital to have an account on LinkedIn.

But it does not end there. Just like creating a website and forgetting about it means forgetting about any potential business. In the same way, it is essential to engage your audience on your LinkedIn. Why?

The primary metric by which LinkedIn decides whether to show your content to users who are not from your direct network is Engagement. If individuals from your network are commenting or liking or sharing your posts, that tells the metrics that your content is engaging and exciting, and it starts sharing your post on other people’s feeds who are not in your network. If those individuals find your post engaging, you can expect thousands of views, which can convert into business.

Hence it is important to keep your audience engaged and can convert them into opportunities. Are you taking the right steps to engage your audience on LinkedIn?

• Have you charted a content roadmap?
  Before random posting, find who your target audience is and what you want to achieve from your LinkedIn Page. Once it is clear, you can chart your content accordingly to enhance your engagement.
  Are you sharing a post from your company account?
  Share from your personal account instead of your company account. Why – even if you have written the article but posting from a company account can lead the reader to think that your PR team must have done the job. From an individual account, it gives a more personalized outlook and can see the engagement rate increasing.
• Is your personal information up to date?
  Many times, people create an account on LinkedIn without filling up all the fields. It is easy to forget to update your LinkedIn profile in case of job change, career change, or update new skill sets. People browsing through your page will not be impressed with the lack of data or outdated information and assume you are inactive and will not engage with you. People also search for contacts through key areas, and the lack of updates on your profile can leave you out. Make sure to update necessary fields like –
            o Industry Company
            o Education
            o Location
            o Skill sets if any
            o Current Job Position

To differentiate your profile, you can also weave your entire profile into an engaging story with a few anecdotes to give it a twist.

• Is your profile picture right?
  Remember LinkedIn is a professional business platform, and hence keep your profile picture professional. You should not be uploading any holiday pictures as your profile picture. There are two photos required for your LinkedIn profile –
  o Background image – make it of your brand or something demonstrative of your industry or your position in the industry.
  o Headshot – this image will reflect whenever someone will search for your profile or interact with someone. Make sure to upload a professional picture as per your industry. As per LinkedIn research, based on your headshot, you can get                     nine times more connection requests and 2times more profile views. So select your best professional-looking photo.
• Have you optimized your post?
  Unlike other social media platforms, Text-Only posts work better and draw more readers on LinkedIn. So make sure you have a catchy heading with crisp subheadings and good formatting with breaking up of post and good font with essential points highlighted. People will engage more with your post with catchy headlines and highlighted valid points.
• Do you have a customized LinkedIn URL?
  Did you know you can create your default LinkedIn profile URL. General URLs are long with alphanumeric characters. LinkedIn has the option to customize public profile URLs which makes it easy for people to engage with you. Make sure to update and link your public profile URL on other platforms.
  Is your content mobile-friendly?
  More than 80 percent of online browsing is through mobile, and you do not want to miss out on opportunities to connect just because your images or videos are not mobile apps friendly. Make sure to double-check your content.
• Are you actively engaging on LinkedIn?
  It is essential to engage actively on LinkedIn. Engaging with other people’s posts can work in your favour, how –
            o People will reciprocate and comment or like your post.
            o Engaging with people outside your network will increase your connections.

Remember, the more active you are in your engagement with other people, you will receive the action back on your profile.

• Have you joined any professional group?
  There are thousands of professional groups on LinkedIn. Join your industry and profession-specific group and try to be active in these groups. Try to contribute to these groups with valuable content to increase your visibility and grow your network.
• Are you using Hashtags?
  Using hashtags at the end of your post increase the visibility of your post. As hashtags are searchable, and whenever someone searches that particular hashtag, your post will appear, thus increasing your visibility. A minimum of 5 to 6 hashtags per post with long-form content is vital to increase visibility.

As Don Tascott, Author of Wikinomics said, “This is not an information age. It’s an age of Networked Intelligence”