How to Connect on Linkedin

Linkedin for Business Tip 1

If you want people to respond to your invitations on Linkedin then make sure you at least have a complete profile.

That may sound obvious but at least once a week I get an invitation from someone to connect who has a poorly developed profile.

Like most people the first thing I do when I get an invitation to connect is I check out their profile. What I’m really doing is seeing if this person is of some value to connect to.

If I see a blank picture holder and just a one or two line job description, then I’m sorry but I won’t be accepting your request.

Similarly if you have a company name and a logo in place of a real person, then your chances of socialising are terminal.

It surprises me that in this age of social media explosion some people take so little care of their professional social media appearance.

Even if you have filled out the basics there are still things you can do to make sure your Linkedin Profile is promoting you as effectively as possible.

There are many reasons for having a great profile, and here are just two.

Linkedin has become a boon for recruitment consultants and is often their first port of call when looking for quality candidates.

If you have less than 250 connections you won’t be considered.

See Does Size Matter? It Does When It Comes to Your LinkedIn Network

How To Optimise Your Profile

This is actually quite easy. Linked in provides a little progress bar telling you how complete your profile is, and offers tips of what to do next.

But to cut a long story short, fill in all the major fields, employment, education, personal details and skills summary.

You will need at least three employment listings, a picture and three recommendations before you can reach 100%.

Why is 100% important? If your profile isn’t complete you won’t show up in any search results on Linkedin.

Also, because Linkedin is a quality site, Google regards it highly and if your profile is optimised well you may find your Linkedin profile ranking highly in the organic Google search results when people are searching for your business or people and companies with your skill sets in your local area.

(I’ll cover how to turbo-charge your profile for search results in a later post.)

For now, just fill in everything and put in as much detail as you can.

If You’re Not Online, You Don’t Exist

I know it sounds like a scene from some creepy 80’s horror movie, but if you don’t have a well developed online and social presence these days, you don’t exist.

If you want people to connect with you and develop your online connections, then you are going to have to put some work into developing your social profile/s.

As I said at the beginning, the first thing we do is check out people’s profiles to see if there is any value in connecting with them. As Linkedin is purely a professional and business networking environment, this is perfectly acceptable.

So your profile must communicate value, you must have social currency. The more you have, the more people will want to connect with you. If you don’t have much, then you’ll be like the kid with personal hygiene problems in high school that everyone avoided.

It’s a cruel world.