A Guest post: This article is written by Mayur Jadhav
I start my day scrolling through LinkedIn posts, reading a few of them, engaging, and replying to my DM’s.
That’s how I start my day.
I create one piece of content a day— easy peasy, right? It helped me to gain over 4 million + content impressions and 45k+ followers, organically.
You can also achieve almost everything on LinkedIn without spending a dime on ads. That’s the beauty of LinkedIn.
LinkedIn is not just a professional networking site, it is far beyond that. I use LinkedIn to network (of course), build a personal brand, generate leads, make awareness, find a job, read interesting content, news, and whatnot!
But, how do I use LinkedIn day-to-day life?
I treat LinkedIn as a business tool, creating value add content, participate in the conversation, reaching out to people.
Before I reveal how I use LinkedIn, lets look at my profile analytics. Numbers never lie.
Here are the exact 4 ways I use LinkedIn to grow my personal brand and make a foundation for my business.
1. Business Tool
Stop saying, LinkedIn is a social media platform and start using it as a business tool. Once you make that mindset then you’ll be able to see tons of opportunities coming on your way. This business tool enables you to interact with top industry people, stay in touch, understand their thought processes through their content.
What can you get from this tool?
- A Job offer
- Bunch of freelancing projects
- Tons of knowledge
- Stay updated with industry news
- Generate leads
- Find your tribe
I believe you’re looking for any of the above or you might need it in the future so, why not take one step forward today and start using this platform more seriously?
The first and foremost thing you have to do on LinkedIn is to “Connect”
2. Connect
The sending and receiving connection requests are the core part of this platform. Although there is a “Follow” option as well. But, people on LinkedIn have segregated 4 types of connections, 1st degree, 2nd, 3rd + degree connections.
The little number appears after your name tells you the connection degree. You can have a maximum of 30,000 first-degree connections and no limit on followers. Interesting thing is, once you get connected with someone, by default you both follow each other.
If you have 30,000 people in your network, it means you should have min 30,000 followers unless someone unfollows you manually.
- 1st degree: You and your friend, both are connected to each other. Your friend is a 1st-degree connection to you.
- 2nd degree: Your friend’s friend, they are connected to each other. Your friend’s friend is a 2nd-degree connection to you.
- 3rd+ degree: Except for 1st and 2nd-degree connections, the rest of the LinkedIn world is your 3rd+ degree connection.
Every day try to explore some interesting profiles to connect with them and start meaningful conversations. Make this habit to add relevant people to your network to grow on LinkedIn. Don’t overdo it.
Please don’t participate in “open to connect” discussions where people encourage you to connect with anyone, almost anyone, they just want to increase their follower numbers.
3. Create
Content creation is the foundation of LinkedIn growth. You can only build an empire by creating content. This is the only way you can influence people by sharing your knowledge.
LinkedIn’s organic reach = social Gold
Though content creation is not as easy as it seems to be. I have seen people struggling a lot within the first two weeks of content creation. They do not have a proper content creation system neither they have LinkedIn growth resources to keep it going.
First, find your niche before you actually start creating content. The subjects you’re good at, the area you’re comfortable talking and have some hands-on experience.
You can also follow the “LEARN and CREATE” system where you share while learning any particular thing. This is very popular on Twitter. Just search creators who talk about CSS and JavaScript.
4. Engagement
LinkedIn growth doesn’t solely depend on content creation. You need to allocate some time to engage with the content. It’s a give-and-take relationship. If you go out, engage with other’s content then people do engage with yours.
What the heck!
Why should I care about engagement?
The LinkedIn algorithm prioritizes content on the basis of engagement you get to your content. the more engaging content you create, the more engagement you get. It means more content impressions, more reach which can eventually convert into more followers, inbound leads.
As a content creator, try to understand the content growth priority!
re-share>comments>likes>save
Focus on getting re-shares followed by comments, likes, and saves on your content to skyrocket content impressions.
As stated earlier, content is the only way you can build an empire without spending anything on ads. You just have to master content creation without getting burnout.
If you’re more serious about the LinkedIn game and want to create engaging content faster then check out these LinkedIn growth resources. It will be a lifesaver!