Social media can be an excellent way to network to find a job or build your business. But it can also get you into trouble. Last time, I gave you dos and don’ts for Facebook. In this post, I will talk about LinkedIn.
It’s a little harder to get into trouble on LinkedIn, but still possible. If you have a Twitter account, and you are publicizing those tweets on LinkedIn, you must be mindful of what you tweet. So don’t tweet about what you had for breakfast, or the latest celebrity gossip if you want to use LinkedIn for professional networking.
And that’s really what you should be using it for. At over 150 million members, LinkedIn is the wealthiest SNS and contains the most educated participants. LinkedIn is where the high-ranking corporate decision makers hang out, so if you want to get a job, you need to be on LinkedIn. In fact, 49% are high level decision makers!
But just being on it isn’t enough. Don’t bother setting up a profile unless you do it properly. An incomplete or inaccurate profile is worse than no profile, because it shows that you thought you know how to present yourself professionally but you missed the mark. So, here are some essential tips:
-
- Add a profile picture. Use a professional head shot if possible. If that’s not possible, then make sure it’s a photo of just yourself in some sort of business attire.
- Use an appropriate, and attractive title. If you are an open networker (meaning you will accept connection requests from people you don’t know), consider adding “LION” (LinkedIn Open Networker) or “open networker” to your title and/or summary session.
- Add your high school to your education. You never know when someone may contact you that went to the same high school. And that person could be a valuable connection.
- Fill out the summary section fully. This is actually the most important section. Add bullet points about yourself, including what schools you went to. It’s OK to add personal stuff, but not things that are too intimate. For example, hobbies are OK, recent deaths in your family are not.
- Join LinkedIn groups. The more groups you join, the wider your network will grow. (To check how large your network is, click on “contacts”, then “network statistics”).
Yours in the Joy of Knowledge,
Barb LoFrisco
Also check:
• https://mastersincounseling.org/counseling/counseling-supervision/
• https://mastersincounseling.org/education/becoming-a-mental-health-counselor-licensure-and-training/
• https://mastersincounseling.org/resources/the-most-important-thing-you-need-to-do-as-a-counselor/
