Social media sites are excellent ways to stay connected with varying levels of friends, but what about using it to brand yourself and promote your career? LinkedIn.com is one of the most powerful platforms to develop a network to promote your career. Feeling skeptical about the impact one platform can make? Take a look at these statistics for 2015 published by global social media strategist Katy Elle Blake1:
- Over 332 million people are on LinkedIn
- Of those, over 39 million are students and recent graduates
- Each second two new members join
- 40% of users check their accounts daily
- 41% of millionaires have accounts
Have I made a believer of you now? Don’t be intimidated by using a new tool and give it a try. You can add as much or as little about yourself but the trick is to get started and create an account.
How do you brand yourself with a LinkedIn profile?
LinkedIn is the ideal place to self publish articles you’ve written about your industry. Write an article about something you feel strongly about in your field, or share a few helpful tips for beginners and publish it on LinkedIn. That’s a great way to get noticed by other professionals and establish yourself as an expert in the field.
You can also share articles other people have written. By endorsing professional content about your industry, your connections will see you are staying active in your pursuit for knowledge. This can help toward establishing yourself as an expert.
When you’re involved with anything that is related to your career, share it on LinkedIn. You can do this through the “share an update” function. This is similar to posting a tweet, but it’s on LinkedIn.com. So, for example, if you attend a conference for work, post an update on LinkedIn and tell people what you did and how much you liked it. Or maybe you realized after the conference that you should have spent your time there in a different way—write an article about that.
Extra tip: Endorse your connections for their skills.
Once a month, take fifteen minutes to look at your connections’ profiles and click the endorse button for their skills. (Don’t just endorse them for every skill they have and don’t endorse them for a skill you haven’t witnessed yourself.) Your connections will appreciate this and they may endorse you in return. This is a great way to stay top-of-mind with your connections by reminding them that you appreciate their professional skills.
Using your LinkedIn.com profile to brand yourself helps you get more profile views from professionals in your field, and if you apply for jobs, employers will see that you’re active and interested in your field. If you’re not sure where to start, check out these blog articles posted on InHealthcareToday.com:
How to Create a Stellar LinkedIn Profile
How to Connect with More People Who Could Hire You
Want to learn more about how Ultimate Medical Academy helps students prepare for a career in healthcare? Maybe you’re ready to look into online healthcare degrees or on-campus healthcare programs with hands-on training. UMA is here to help.
1. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/2015-linkedin-statistics-you-need-know-katy-elle-blake