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Fighting our way into the social media realm

LinkedIn

LinkedIn launches tools to help candidates nail their next job interviews

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Few things are more stressful in life than interviews for highly desirable jobs, most candidates would say. Roughly a third of hiring managers to decide in the first 90 seconds whether to hire someone and as many as 40% counts the absence of a smile against the interviewee. In fact, the same percentage of interviewers say that the quality of a would-be employee’s voice and their overall confidence play a role in their disqualification or advancement.

LinkedIn’s findings agree with the literature — in a recent survey, the job search and hiring platform found that 54% of job seekers think the interview phase is “moderately to extremely challenging,” while 41% of all recruiters report that asking well-informed questions is one of their top qualifications for candidates. That’s why starting next week on mobile and desktop in English-speaking countries, LinkedIn will begin rolling out to job-seeking members helpful interview hints, practice exercises, answers to top-asked questions, and expert advice on how to approach conversations.

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See Full Story at venturebeat.com

5 Ways to Optimize and Accelerate Your LinkedIn Company Page

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With a focus on following LinkedIn company page best practices and increased competition as the LinkedIn algorithm continues to evolve, here are the top five ways that companies can optimize a company page on LinkedIn in 2019:

1. Optimize for SEO.

Companies need to optimize their company page on LinkedIn for SEO. An SEO-friendly LinkedIn profile will increase online visibility among users searching for information on them, such as the types of products they offer and the services they provide. Companies can optimize their LinkedIn profile doing the following:

  • Inserting keywords and phrases into their company profile.
  • Creating links to their company profile by adding it to their official website, blog and other marketing and promotional material.
  • Sharing relevant and engaging content on a regular basis

2. Create a visually compelling company profile.

Companies need to create a visually compelling LinkedIn profile by combining text with an image — recommended size is 1200 x 627 pixels. Since the human brain processes image 60,000 times faster than words, adding images will provide companies with 94 per cent more views.

Consequently, a company needs to take proactive measures in ensuring that they upload articles with pictures, infographics, charts, presentations and more. They can also consider creating and uploading videos on LinkedIn. They can publish these visuals with text on LinkedIn’s publishing platform as well as on their company page.

By Melanie Goodman

See Full Story at www.entrepreneur.com

LinkedIn Gives SEO Tips for Boosting Visibility

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If your LinkedIn page isn’t ranking as well as desired, consider these suggestions to boost its visibility.

Start With Keywords

LinkedIn recommends starting with keyword research and incorporating your chosen keywords into the tagline and about section.

When it comes to writing the about section, LinkedIn recommends following this framework:

  • Vision: What future do we want to help create?
  • Mission: How do we create that future?
  • Values: Who are we? How do we work?
  • Positioning: What makes our brand different?
  • Tagline: Our brand summed up in one line.
  • Products/Services: Here’s what we provide.

Update Your Page Frequently

LinkedIn recommends publishing regular updates to send signals to search engines that your page is actively engaging with followers.

It’s likely you already have your own strategy for optimizing LinkedIn pages. It may be useful to compare and contrast your methods with the company’s own recommendations.

By Matt Southern

See Full Story at www.searchenginejournal.com

LinkedIn has a fake-profile problem

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These profiles then request to connect with the millions of legitimate users on LinkedIn or, if they pay for LinkedIn Premium, have the ability to just message users with peculiar asks.

Execs in the industry told Digiday while they find LinkedIn a valuable tool for their profession — to network and to keep up on industry news, for example — the amount of spam they receive leaves them frustrated. And it’s not a good look for LinkedIn, which proclaims a “simple mission” to “connect the world’s professionals to make them more productive and successful.” When users have to manage connection requests from fake profiles, LinkedIn becomes a time waster rather than a productive tool. While LinkedIn has worked to improve its product by introducing video and more sophisticated ad tools, the platform is still plagued by inauthenticity. It’s unclear how many fake profiles exist on the site.

 “Fake accounts are a violation of our terms of service and we take action against them. When we identify bad actors, we take appropriate action, which often includes a permanent restriction from LinkedIn. We use a variety of automated techniques, coupled with human reviewers and member reporting, to keep our members safe from all types of bad actors and abuse. If members encounter something that makes them uncomfortable, suspect someone might not be representing themselves honestly or see inappropriate behavior like harassment or inaccurate content, we ask that they report it to us immediately and know that they can always block another member or remove a connection,” emailed Paul Rockwell, LinkedIn’s head of trust and safety.
See Full Story at digiday.com

How to Access Lynda LinkedIn Learning for Free

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Whether you are a business executive, a young computer coder, or a consumer who simply wants to keep learning, the Lynda.com website (acquired by LinkedIn a few years ago and now called LinkedIn Learning officially) is often available at a public library for free.

Many corporations pay for LinkedIn Learning so that their employees can keep up with important soft skills or technical skills, continuing education in a specialty. You can check with your HR department if they offer this perk.

If you wonder if those soft skills are really valuable, the third annual 2019 Workplace Learning Report found some of the country’s fastest growing roles—sales development, customer success, and customer experience jobs—are largely soft skills-based. The most in-demand skill is Creativity, followed by Persuasion, Analytical reasoning, Collaboration, and, Flexible approach (a.k.a. Adaptability). If you thought all those soft skills were not needed in the workplace, think again. The online learning platform has all of these courses.

By TJ McCue

See Full Story at www.forbes.com

LinkedIn Launches New Guide to Audience Targeting for LinkedIn Ads

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After recently launching its Lookalike Audiences ad targeting option, the latest in a range of data additions to help improve the focus of your on-platform promotions, LinkedIn has this week published a new, detailed guide on how to use its various ad targeting tools in order to maximize your LinkedIn ad performance.

The guide provides an overview of each of the ad targeting options now available on the platform, and explains how each element works, and how you can best utilize them. At present, for example, here are the demographic targeting tools you can now use on LinkedIn:

For each targeting element, LinkedIn provides a description, and an explanation on how it can be useful – including, as noted, the newly added Lookalike Audiences.

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See Full Story at www.socialmediatoday.com

How To Make A Positive First Impression On LinkedIn

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Social media can be a great tool to express who we are and what we care about. LinkedIn, for example, gives us the same opportunity, but we have to remember that business-oriented platforms are professional sites that can be leveraged to help us make money, gain promotions, promote our professional initiatives and attract corporate or business vendors and clients who are in need of our services.

Consider the first things a person might see.

What would a recruiter see within the first six seconds of looking at your LinkedIn profile? If someone had the same information that you currently provide on your account, would you be willing to reach out to them to connect professionally, or would you bypass their profile because it seems abandoned, mixed up or bland? Make sure everything is clear, and think: professional.

• Your profile picture: Ask yourself if this picture is the way you would present yourself in the workplace? If your answer is no, imagine your target client or employer is recruiting people with your skill set. View your picture, and see if your personal brand is properly established to match the company’s needs.

• Your name: Include your first and last names, and do not include a nickname unless it is the professional name people refer to you as. This way, people will know how to properly address and approach you.

• Your title: Who are you? Is this a good title for your targeted audience? I believe simply writing “Searching For Work” does not let others know who you are. A great title should describe what you do professionally to highlight your expertise and inspire others to read the rest of your profile.

• Your professional experience: LinkedIn allows you to list your current and past positions. In my experience, using the right verbiage under the positions you list is very helpful for recruiters, vendors and investors who are looking for your skills and knowledge. Listing your information with strong keywords can also help boost your search engine optimization for searches that are both internal and external from LinkedIn.

By Michelle Weathersby

See Full Story at www.forbes.com

 

This is the easiest way to make your LinkedIn profile stand out

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A LinkedIn headline is the line directly under your name–on your profile page, in the sidebar of people similar to you, and what people see in search results when they type your name. It’s the thing that people view the most after your name and headshot.

But most people don’t exploit this opportunity. Instead, they fall back on LinkedIn’s default settings–which copy and paste your job title and employer into this critical field.

A JOB TITLE TELLS YOU NOTHING

My “official” title is president of the Jonathan Rick Group. But if I’d put that on my LinkedIn headline, most people will probably look at it and have no idea what that means.

Sure, the word “president” may be impressive, but it doesn’t give you any clue about what the job involves or what I can do for you. As much as I’d love to flatter myself, it’s unlikely that a prospective client would see the headline, “JRG president,” and instantly think, “This guy can solve all my digital marketing needs!”

I’d go so far as to say that the same thing would apply to my previous jobs, such as “senior strategist at Rock Creek Strategic Marketing,” and “senior consultant at Booz Allen Hamilton.” You may have heard of Booz Allen, but unless you’re a senior consultant at Booz Allen, you probably have no idea what my responsibilities looked like.

There’s a simple solution to this–customize your headline. Instead of meekly recording your title and company, try following the tried-and-true strategy of describing what you do and who you help. This is your elevator pitch in 120 characters.

See Full Story at www.fastcompany.com

10 tips for making LinkedIn useful, even if you already have a job

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Many of us think of LinkedIn as the lamest social network. But that’s because we’re not using it to its full potential. With the correct method, it can teach you more about your chosen field, help you make new connections in your industry, and even lead to a better job. Here are 10 tips to make LinkedIn work for you—without requiring a premium upgrade.

1. Customize your feed

LinkedIn has adopted a Facebook-style news feed that greets you whenever you log in to your account. If your feed seems like white noise, that’s because you haven’t tuned it to show the most relevant content.

To get a more customized experience, head to the LinkedIn website and click View all recommendations on the top right. The network will provide a list of suggested individuals and topics. Click Follow next to the ones that interest you, and those posts will end up in your feed. (Just remember that, for individuals, this isn’t the same thing as actually connecting with them).

On the opposite tack, you want to get rid of posts that aren’t relevant to your interests. If a boring or annoying update shows up in your feed, click the three dots on that post’s top right corner and select Unfollow. If this is a post from a contact, you’ll remain connected, but you won’t have to scroll through anything they share.

By David Nield

See Full Story at www.popsci.com

LinkedIn Just Gave You a New Reason to Make Fun of LinkedIn

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LinkedIn, a social network for people who enjoy soul-crushing banality, knows you get more than a few emails from randos wanting to add you to their “professional network.” Sick of reading messages from these random acquaintances looking to discuss synergy-based solutions and B2B services? Well, now you can listen to them instead, thanks to voice messaging, the newest feature being added to LinkedIn’s iOS and Android app.

LinkedIn knows what you’re thinking: “Why use voice messaging?” That’s why in its blog post under the heading “Why use voice messaging?” the company outlined the reasons one might resort to audio messages.

 

“People speak about four times faster than they type, making voice messaging great for explaining longer or more complex ideas without the time and involvement of typing and editing a message,” says LinkedIn in its blog post, seemingly unaware of how awful it is to hear people ramble on during voice messages. “Speaking in your own voice allows you to build a more personal connection and effectively communicate,” the blog post reads. “It’s easier for your tone and personality to come through, which can sometimes get lost in translation in written communications.”

Hope you love startup pitches!

Including voice messaging in your app is one thing, but suggesting it’s an easier and more convenient way to conduct business in a professional environment is a real head-scratcher. In a world where communicating in text is simply how it’s done now, conducting business over what amounts to voicemail seems like a flawed plan.

By Patrick Lucas Austin

See Full Story at gizmodo.com