You decided to build your personal brand and started off with passion, adding everyone you knew since primary school and then … nothing.  You dropped out of the LinkedIn orbit and got busy running your business, moving up the career ladder, or just with life. 

LinkedIn is a great tool for your career, particularly if you own your own business as through your network you can establish yourself as an expert in your field and extend your reach and exposure. But shock horror, you actually need to be active on the platform to get the most from it.  And it’s a platform where size does matter.  Remember, the more first-degree connections you have, the more second- and third-degree connections you have, making you literally one connection away from millions of people.

So why is being a connection away from millions of people important? Because LinkedIn is a massive search engine in which you’ll only show up in your first-, second-, and third-degree connections’ searches. In other words, if you’re not connected with individuals at these levels, you won’t come up in their search results. And only those three levels will show up in your searches.

So if you want to be found on LinkedIn, strategically build your number of first-degree connections. This will exponentially increase the likelihood that LinkedIn search algorithms will find you and place you near the top of search results. New job, here we come!

Here are our top five tips for connecting on LinkedIn:

1. POST

Not surprisingly if you want to be seen on LinkedIn you need to be posting status updates every day. Make sure your posts; add value, talk about your business and where appropriate include a call to action. When you consistently stay in the feeds of your connections, there’s more opportunity for them to comment, like and share your posts. This interaction gets you introduced to their connections and gives you one more way to grow your network. When people are sharing and commenting on your stuff, it’s social proof that you’re an expert in your field.

2. ENGAGE

I love LinkedIn, so many great business stories and insights.  It’s the first platform I jump onto in the morning.  So, as you scroll through the newsfeed; engage!  That’s giving relevant posts and people a like, comment or share their updates and posts. Build an audience by joining the conversation on popular posts in your niche. This interaction lets people know you exist and gives you more visibility. Some of these people are likely to want to know more about you, leading to new connections.

3. PERSONALISE

When sending a connection request, personalise it in some way, how did you meet? Hod do you know him or her? Why do you want to connect? Review LinkedIn’s suggested connections at least once a week. Make it a goal to find people in your industry or niche and personally connect with them. Try to connect with two or three people each time. Connect with people after you meet them.  Try chrome extensions like Rapportive to build your connections on LinkedIn. Rapportive shows you everything about your contacts right inside your inbox, including their LinkedIn profile. 

4. PROMOTE

You don’t want your LinkedIn profile to be a state secret so make sure you promote your Public Profile URL or set up a Public profile badge builder. Your LinkedIn profile works for you in a number of ways: as a resume, a testimonial, a portfolio of projects and clients and proof of expert value, all in one convenient place. In your email signature, rather than send prospects to your Facebook account (or nowhere at all), send people to your LinkedIn profile – add to your blogs, business cards etc too, the more people that connect with you the better.

5. JOIN

Sector or niche groups are a great way to connect with like-minded people. Commit to searching for a few new LinkedIn groups to join each month. And then make sure you engage with each group often (daily if you can) by commenting, asking questions and liking other people’s comments. A group is a great opportunity to do market research, post links to your updates to get more views and engage with others in your niche, as well as those who aren’t. When people see you in groups and interact with you over time, they’ll be more likely to connect. You might even find a new client through a group.

Like anything on Social Media, it’s not setting something up and leaving it to look after itself, it’s about networking. And it takes time, but it will be worth it.  Give yourself small goals and eventually, it will become a habit.

Happy LinkedIn-ing xx

Download our LinkedIn Public Profile URL How-To-Guide