Want your most successful LinkedIn year yet?

Do you want a successful LinkedIn experience? I coach job seekers and professionals on LinkedIn every day. Together we examine the myths and confusion that abound on LinkedIn.

How to have a successful LinkedIn experience

Grow your connections.

Often I find people connected with less than 100 people. This will not allow you to have the full LinkedIn experience.

Think of LinkedIn as a spider web, interconnecting your connections with their connections. This opens the doors to many possibilities.

You are more likely to have connections with a company when you have a higher number of connections. If you have less than 100, make your goal to have 100 next. When you have 200 LinkedIn Connections, make your goal 250. If you have 500, shoot for 600.

Each time you reach your goal, make a new goal. However, never connect just to connect.

Your connections also need to be strategic and valuable. If you connect with strangers just to grow your numbers, you will have an unhealthy network. The original premise behind LinkedIn was to be able to reach out to anyone in your connections to ask for help and in return give help. It is hard to ask to be recommended for a job if you don’t know your connections.

How to determine how what to put in your LinkedIn profile

Your profile is strategic decision you make yourself. Too many people look at someone they admire in their company. The problem with that strategy is the person they look at may not be experienced in LinkedIn.

Perhaps they set up a profile because they heard you should be on LinkedIn. They may have never bothered to complete their profile. If you try to emulate someone without knowing why they chose their LinkedIn strategy, your profile will not be effective.

By writing your resume first and making sure you fill your resume with resume stories illustrating your success in each role, you can repurpose your content to LinkedIn.

The thought process I lead my clients through to develop the resume allows us to be ready to build a robust LinkedIn profile resonating with success stories.

Don’t worry so much about page ranking for your LinkedIn success

Before you start using tricks to get on page one of LinkedIn, remember the value of LinkedIn is in networking. Yes, it is great if your talent is in high demand so that the perfect job comes your way. However, you need to be proactive, not reactive. If you reach out to network connections who can get you in touch with hiring managers at the jobs you target, you will be much more effective.

If someone recruits you as a passive candidate, good for you. But this only happens sometimes. Job search is work. Position yourself to be successful.

Today alone, I coached three talented professionals in management consulting, information technology, and pharmaceutical fields on how to be more effective and successful on LinkedIn. I teach people strategies every day to succeed. Learn more here.