When you hear the term “influencers” on social media, your first thought is probably of Instagram personalities with hundreds of thousands of followers, or perhaps YouTube celebrities.
However, LinkedIn influencers are different. It's not about having to go on expensive luxury trips to gain followers. Here, you can leverage your professional knowledge to become someone known and respected in the industry.
In this article, we will look at how to become a LinkedIn influencer and how you can leverage it to have better professional opportunities.
How to become a LinkedIn influencer?
Do you want to become an influencer in your industry on LinkedIn? There are a few important steps you'll need to take first.
You should have a strong, well-developed and complete profile. People should be able to glance at your profile and know who you are, what experience you have and what you are doing now.
The most important parts of your profile will be:
Profile photo
Tagline on LinkedIn
Summary
Featured Content
All the other areas are important too, so make sure you fill them out, but let's take a quick look at the crucial parts of your profile.
Profile photo
Choose a clean, high-quality, well-lit photo of yourself in the clothes you would wear to meet a client.
You should not have other people in the photo and you should not choose “personal” photos like you would on social media.
Tagline
Some people will simply use their job title as a tagline, which is located below their name. However, if you want to draw attention to your profile and work on establishing yourself as an influencer, it's best to get a little more creative.
For example, “Experienced, High-Converting PPC Content Marketer and Copywriter” is more descriptive than “Marketing Copywriter” and emphasizes that quality and results are important.
You should also consider searchability. If people are searching for “social media marketing specialists,” a catchy tagline may get attention when seen, but it could cost you potential search visibility.
Summary
Your LinkedIn Summary (now called “About”) should take your Tagline to the next step, detailing what makes you unique, what you have to offer, and what you’re currently looking for in terms of career opportunities.
You have 2000 characters (although you don't have to use them all) philippine whatsapp number and you have to make them count.
Featured Content
Featured content should represent only your main content – you can choose at least three, but limit it to five. This can help you demonstrate credibility and showcase your expertise when people visit your site.
4 necessary practices
As you build your name as one of the top LinkedIn influencers to follow, keep these four practices in mind.
1. Have a distinct voice
If you can say something in a new and interesting way, people will notice.
Social Media College puts forward Chima Mmeje as a standout example. She is a Nigeria-based copywriter who has received significant international attention and speaking opportunities. Her content is witty, sharp, funny, intelligent and actionable.
2. Take advantage of your experience
We emphasize this a lot, but your work history and life experience are unique.
Include whether you have worked with startups, with well-known companies, what their specialties are and why it would be beneficial to hire you.
Your specific perspective is what will help you create content that is different from everything else out there.
3. Make your content actionable
You can make a post that says “The Instagram algorithm is changing, read more to keep up with the developments!”
You might get a few likes, but you'll get a lot more attention if you make a post explaining that the algorithm is changing, specific strategies to get more engagement, and even an example from your own account.
There are already many theories regarding the topic, focusing on practice is key.
4. Don't trust grand or shocking narratives
Some people try to gain influencer status by sharing “shocking” opinions or grandiloquent statements. That kind of content won’t work on LinkedIn. People might dismiss you and you won’t get the results you’re looking for.
Is LinkedIn's influence important in the marketing world?
On most other platforms, people want to be influencers because there may be direct earning opportunities through views, ads, or some kind of sponsorship.
On LinkedIn, however, it’s a little different. People who have a high engagement number that is significant enough to be considered influencers are gaining credibility in their fields. They share value with their audience in many cases by providing rich, engaging, and informative content that people love to learn from or interact with.
This typically won't result in sponsorships like you see on Instagram or YouTube, but it can benefit your career in a number of ways:
You can attract the attention of potential employers if you are looking for work through agencies.