The professional networking site, LinkedIn, is coming of age with over 100 million users. Here are ways to get the most benefit from your LinkedIn pages. It’s a low cost, high visibility platform to showcase the personal brand and reputation of healthcare practitioners and their clinics.
LinkedIn is mainly for and about professionals and business networking. If there’s one social media platform that healthcare practitioners should be using to showcase themselves, it’s LinkedIn.
LinkedIn is one online space to park your CV. Even if you’re not looking for new career, healthcare colleagues and other members of your world should have a place to go to learn a little bit about you.
Most of what LinkedIn has to offer is free with a basic account.
The single most important way to get more from LinkedIn…
Think of LinkedIn as a dynamic process, and not a static page. The primary fuel of networking is in activity and interaction. And the single most important way to get more value and benefit from LinkedIn is in making regular changes.
This “secret” is no surprise. Like many other social media platforms, it is the connections and interactivity that propel the process of networking. The LinkedIn system recognises when change occurs and often that triggers a notice to others. What’s more, change is important to search engines and the algorithms of stronger search listings.
Call them updates, revisions; adding or subtracting content is what causes others to notice your pages. Here are tips to bring more activity to your profile and get more value from your LinkedIn pages with changes like these. There’s no cost involved, except for a small investment of time.
Refresh your descriptive Summary. Likely you’ve done something new, attended a conference, been a presenter or earned an award. Add the new details, remove the dated ones, and occasionally rewrite the description to be relevant and timely.
Update your photograph. Use a photo that is less than a year old. Take a new photo if needed. Switch between a “business casual” photo and a formal pose from time to time.
Add titles to your Reading List. LinkedIn makes this easy to do, complete with book cover.
Join LinkedIn Groups (or start your own). Consider LinkedIn’s suggestions for Groups You May Like and/or search for other options.
Rearrange the sections of your profile. New on LinkedIn is your ability to present your profile sections in the order you choose. Click on draggable handles and drop in your preferred order of presentation.
Make contact or contribute comments. Add your note to the discussions of others. Better yet, begin a conversation. Send brief notes of thanks, congrats, etc.
Recommend others and vice versa. LinkedIn notices the connectivity between and among individuals.
Add connections. You may not know it, but you likely have friends, colleagues and university graduates who are already LinkedIn members. LinkedIn will tell you who is listed. It’s easy to check your list, make invitations or invite non-members to join in.
Post your presentations. LinkedIn and SlideShare work together. Include the PowerPoint or other visual materials from your most recent talk or professional presentation.
If you’re not already using LinkedIn, it’s time to reconsider. For more about social media marketing, reach out to us here at Ideal Practice.
