40% of professionals find it difficult to describe their job. I can definitely relate!
LinkedIn is a powerful tool we can use to overcome this difficulty. The secret sauce is to build a story around your professional career.
Why your boosting personal brand on LinkedIn is so important
Why should you work on your personal brand? Working on your social media footprint is essential to marketing yourself. If you want to grow your social media to advance your career, LinkedIn is the right choice:
- 6 people are hired through LinkedIn every minute
- There are 77 job applications submitted every second on LinkedIn
- An ad on LinkedIn can reach 14.6% of the world’s population
- LinkedIn’s ad reach grew by 22 million people in Q4 2021 (that’s a 2.8% increase from Q3)
- 65+ million LinkedIn users are decision-makers
Given these data, it seems only reasonable to use LinkedIn as a tool to boost your personal brand. You can improve your business opportunities, or make yourself more valuable as a professional.
5 tips to boost your personal brand
Yes, you can:
- Optimize your LinkedIn profile
- Have a great description to sell yourself
- Set your profile to public
- Create high-quality authoritative content
But what to post when you’re running out of ideas? How can you stand out from the crowd?
This article will give you 5 prompts for simple things you can post on Linkedin when you’re out of time or out of energy.
A quote from something you’re reading/watching
Basically any type of content you have been consuming. Only requirement: it has to add value to your audience – which means, to your LinkedIn network.
Some people think that in order to be shared on LinkedIn, content has to be strictly related to your professional field – I disagree. The lines are much more blurred than that.
Remember: the people you network with professionally, are first and foremost, just people. As individuals, their lives go beyond their careers. Mindless scrolling is a thing on LinkedIn too – just like in any other social media platform, people are looking to be entertained.
Being open to sharing the type of content you’ve been consuming, not only as a professional but as an individual looking for inspiration/entertainment/education can make you a more valuable connection.
Protip: Video content is proven to be among the best-performing types of content across social media platforms.
Your personal review of a tool you’ve been using
You might be using some tools while you work, or perhaps in your personal life. If you are interested in those, some other people might be too (to manage their work or their personal life).
Sharing your experience with a product is a simple way to create valuable content. Here are some recommended to-do’s to follow:
- Make sure you’ve actually used the product and have enough materials to do a helpful review
- Be honest and polite
- Explain why you have been using this product and what were you expecting from it
- Consider some visuals (screenshots or videos) from the product, if allowed by terms of use
- Make it relatable
Protip: Tag the company you’re reviewing. Tagging vendors will boost your engagement and increase your visibility. You will also make sure your feedback reaches the people in charge of the product, making your input more valuable.
A Shoutout to someone else’s work
Of course, you must give credit. But there’s nothing wrong with re-posting great content from someone else when you don’t feel like creating your own.
The pros are:
- You’re boosting the creator’s visibility
- You’re providing high-quality content that inspires your followers (it doesn’t matter if it’s not coming directly from you)
- You’re adding your personal input to someone else’s initial prompt. Commenting on other people’s work trains you to think critically. You might also provide a new angle on something that has already been widely discussed.
Repost content that went viral on other social media platforms
This is a lazy-go-to for social media managers too. The rule of thumb is, if it worked on [social media platform], it might work on LinkedIn too.
Especially if you’re working in digital marketing, LinkedIn is a great platform to discuss a viral post and analyze it from a content marketing perspective.
You might even receive insightful prompts from your network and build new relationships.
Repurpose content you already have
This could even be something you posted one year ago. People love a good throwback. It only takes a moment to scroll back to your previous post and find something that can be repurposed.
Build a story around that, explain where you were at, what were you aiming for with that piece of content, and where are you now. What have you learned on this path? If you had to create the same post today, would it look different? Share what you’ve learned.
Bonus tips
Among the other things you can do to boost your personal brand, you should take the following into account.
Connect people together and share the results
LinkedIn is built on connecting people with the same professional interests – isn’t that a fantastic concept?
For this reason, curating your network carefully might be crucial to determine how successful your personal branding will be. This means paying attention to the people you’ll follow, but not only that.
Keep in mind that careers are often built on professional connections. Being a connection builder will add value to your professional community, and people will start looking at you as an esteemed professional.
Feature LinkedIn Groups
People will be curious about your interests. Joining a LinkedIn group can give a deeper understanding of you, with the great benefit of being part of a community.
Featuring a LinkedIn group will highlight your skills – for example, if you’re an expert baker, people might expect you to be part of some groups that relate to bakery art. Use your presence in the group as a chance to share your experience, and establish yourself as an expert.
Be smart, use your activity to showcase your brand.
A wrap-up
This article walked you through some lazy initiatives you can take for effective personal branding on LinkedIn. You found plenty of tips, however there is a common denominator to highlight: whatever you wish to share on LinkedIn, it has to be relevant to your audience.
As long as it adds value to your audience, people will engage with it it and share with their network. Keep this in mind, and you’ll be growing your personal brand effectively.