Remember what you learned the first day on the job in commercial real estate? You learned that the most important thing in the business is “Location Location Location” – they lied! It’s actually “Relationship Relationship Relationship”; and today this holds more importance than ever before! Why? Simple – because people do business with those they know, like and trust and social networking opportunities like LinkedIn allow this to happen.

Social Networking such as LinkedIn has the ability to expand your relationship opportunities within the commercial real estate industry – it’s huge. We are dealing with much bigger possibilities when we allow social networking to enter the mix! And the best way to get clients? Join Groups!

How To Start or “Join A Commercial Real Estate LinkedIn Group”

Professionals have always been drawn to groups, recognize their power and see them as a way to be connected with each other. Increase your network quicker than you ever dreamed possible by using LinkedIn Groups; join an existing group or form a new one of your own and invite others to join it.

Once in a group, you can search all group members using an advanced people search to find interesting contacts, then message them within LinkedIn or invite them to connect: if you share a group you don’t need to know their e-mail. Obviously this is a feature not to be abused.

To join a group you will want to click on Groups and search for Groups you could belong to, including Groups organized by industry associations. Try plugging the search words: Commercial Real Estate – you will be shocked to see how many groups there are. There are hundreds to choose from – literally. How about trying: Commercial Real Estate Investors – becoming a member of one of these groups will allow you to be seen as an expert.

As a Group member two critical things you can do is (a) browse through the Group membership and reach out to individuals, and (b) participate in Group Discussions. By participating you are able to get you and your brand in front of potential contacts. Think about a creative signature you can leave behind on every post. One that drives either an invite or a profile view. This to drives traffic & views of your profile.

Finally, you can “poll” these groups gaining valuable information. Try asking what the members see as the biggest challenge in the commercial real estate market today and then use the results to craft solutions. People buy solutions to their problems and are willing to pay just about anything for these solutions!

If you stick with it you will GET CLIENTS, I promise. Good luck and drop me an email when you get your first client!

A new grad sent an inquiry about using LinkedIn in her job search – here’s the answer, in the form of a letter to my young friend. Take a look, and see how LinkedIn can help in your own job search!

Dear Emily,

Congratulations on your new degree! Here are a few ideas on using LinkedIn in your job search.

I don’t think that an overt outreach campaign that reaches out to people (whether hiring managers, HR folks, or other influencers) at various companies and tells them about your job search, is going to be especially satisfying for you. For one thing, this is the sort of contact that people fear when they’re trying to decide whether or not to join a network like LinkedIn. Unless there is some clear, compelling intersection between your background or talents and the company’s specific need, I would view this as typically unwelcome contact.

(I’m just one person. But I’m a ridiculously long-in-the-tooth HR person, with a focus on job hunting.)

Luckily, there are many better ways to use LinkedIn in your job search. Here are four of them, for starters:

1) Check out LinkedIn jobs, naturally. If you can see a job there, that means that you’re connected to the job, which is very sweet for a new grad. If you do not have tons of connections, connect to your parents’ friends, or anyone you know who’s already in the business world.

2) Use LinkedIn for your job-search research project. You will focus on specific companies – you should do that, as it gives you a target for your job search and turns you into an active job researcher/seeker rather than just a person who trolls Monster.com all day long. As you identify these companies, you can learn a TON about them via LinkedIn. Search on the company name to find people who work there now or who used to work there – what sorts of backgrounds do they have? What sorts of education? Which of these target companies seem most suitable for you given your own experiences and interests?

If you’re looking to apply at a company and don’t feel comfortable contacting someone who works there now, out of the blue (and who could blame you for that), contact someone who USED to work there! Corporate alums are under no pressure to recommend you for a job, and will most likely talk very freely about their former company. This is the indirect approach – LinkedIn is a terrific vehicle for that. (Do the person a favor, since he or she is helping you – create a logo for his or her teenage daughter’s blog, for instance.)

3) Use LinkedIn to find relevant headhunters to talk to. Headhunters are well-connected and, like real estate agents, seldom shun a phone call that comes out of the blue (although it may take them awhile to call you back). They may not be able to help you find a job specifically – lots of search people don’t work with new grads, because new grads are not the job-seekers that firms will typically pay search people to find for them – but they can advise you nonetheless. In ten minutes on the phone with a headhunter you can learn enough to target some companies, drop others from your list entirely, and save yourself hours or weeks of trouble.

4) Very important – use LinkedIn to expand the network of people you ALREADY know, who should be informed that you are out of school and job-hunting.

Where there isn’t a compelling rationale for contact, it’s awkward to reach out to strangers and say “Gee, want to hire me?” But you should absolutely use LinkedIn to get back in touch with people you already know – friends of your parents, your friends’ parents and older siblings, the lady you babysat for in high school, anyone you interned for during college, the McKinsey VP who sang in choir at church all those years with your mom – get it? – and enroll them in supporting your job search.

What you are doing with LinkedIn in this case is simply pulling together your existing network (the people you know, though you may not have thought of them as your network) and bringing them up to date on your professional status. Here’s how to find them:

a) do a LinkedIn search on the city where you grew up and identify people you know. If you grew up in San Jose or New York or Chicago, scratch that and go right to b)

b) sit down with a piece of paper and a pencil and list everyone in business that you know. A new grad should be able to list 100 such people – push yourself. Think about Girl Scout leaders, the volunteer who directed “Grease” your senior year of high school, the track team parents, the librarian back in your high school who is a corporate Knowledge Manager now – you can do it! Once you have the list on paper (actually, do it in Word so you can cut and paste names into the LinkedIn search box) start looking for these folks on LinkedIn.

Some of the people on your list won’t be on LinkedIn yet, of course – if you really want to include them in the network you’re constructing, you’ll have to find their email addresses so that you can invite them to join. The easiest way (short of phoning them) is to Google them – there’s a decent chance you’ll find an email address that way. Out of your starter list of 100 friends-and-family advocates, perhaps you’ll end up with a decent network of 65 LinkedIn contacts. Perhaps more!

Good luck Emily! Don’t be timid when it comes time to negotiate the multiple job offers you are sure to be juggling before long.

LinkedIn has proven to be one of the most essential social media platforms for people who want to interact with a vast network of contacts that are interested in doing business and networking with others. There are now millions of people who are using this site and it’s very important that you have a clear knowledge of how things work with this place so that you can get the most out of it.

For starters you should have a very professional and well design profile that will show people all the essential information that you want to bring to them. This includes a clear and short bio, your work experience, the education level you have and the fields that you have more expertise with.

If you want to become a true LinkedIn expert you need to be aware of certain things that you will need in order to succeed in the network. For starters what your goals are as far as the use of the platform in order to do business. Are you interested in scouting for new employees, or maybe looking for a job, perhaps you just want to have new connections that will help you with some product shipments or partners for an investment. In any case you need to be aware of what your goals are before you even get started. This will allow you to work in a more organized and goal driven way.

Then next thing is to setup a good profile with your photo on it. A LinkedIn expert that has a huge network of people is always someone who has a very good profile that looks excellent and makes them trustworthy. If your profile is not good, you won’t get as many people to contact you about doing business. The LinkedIn expert is very aware of this and has a very professional and informative profile page ready for all his visitors to evaluate.

One of the great things about LinkedIn is that you can use the network to remember people’s names and occupations too. If you are going to a meeting full of people who are your LinkedIn contacts, you can always check back on the site and gather information, so that when you meet up with them you will be ready to interact in a more personal way that makes them feel important to you. This is extremely critical for good business relations.

You headline should also be optimal because this will make it much easier for people to know what you are about right from the start. Let’s say that you are looking do to business in a specific niche. You should advertise that in your headline so that people will know from the start what you need and what you are about.

As a LinkedIn expert you should be in constant activity with news feeds about your business or anything that relates to it. The posts should be of good quality and we advice you not to do any posting if you are not going to do it properly. If you feel like a post is rushed and uninteresting, you should avoid it and then you should reformulate everything and work on it again in a more formal matter. There is more harm than good in posting low quality content because some people will probably not check back even if you have quality coming up next. Some visitors will even unsubscribe if they see the quality of your posts is not as good as it was before. Always keep this in mind and you will have much more success in your LinkedIn efforts.

If you have trouble coming up with good content, just browse relevant news site that have any material that you think could appeal to your users and this way you can modify the content into your own original version and publish it. Never under any circumstances copy and paste your news fed because this will hurt your reputation. There is nothing wrong with grabbing some material from other sources for inspiration, but never to use it as you found it. Do not spin it either, because this is not a good way to get SEO. You should always keep the information as original as you possibly can.

Another strategy to turn yourself into a super LinkedIn expert is to advertise your page in your business card, website, blog and other social media too. This will make it much easier for you to gain traffic from other sources and your network will grow a lot faster. There is always a positive outcome from advertising in as many platforms and also offline methods as you can.

Also do your best to join as many groups as you can. A LinkedIn expert is able to network with as many people as he can within the platform boundaries and this helps expand the networking that he does outside LinkedIn too. Networking is the key factor in all of this and you should never neglect the practice of proper networking on your LinkedIn page. The most important thing with social media is to “socialize” online as much as you can so that you can start to see the benefits from a lot more visitors and potential buyers.

LinkedIn has the best traffic of business related visitors than any of the other social media pages out there. Thanks to this it can be used in ways that other networks are not able to work and the potential is truly almost endless if you know how to market yourself inside the network. You can check stats online and you’ll find out that all the mayor corporations are now using LinkedIn to search for new investors, to scout for new talent for their companies and to network with other business owners and share tips on how to perform better in their line of business.

You should always remember that the best way to run a social media page such as this one efficiently is to be constant in all your efforts and this way you will be guaranteed to have more success on your projects. The LinkedIn community is a goldmine for prospecting and for all kinds of business transactions and you should not miss out on the incredible potential that it holds for you.

If you haven’t started yet, you should get started as soon as you can because this has become a very competitive world and there are thousands of business owners who already made the jump into the social media world. You cannot afford to stay away from this and let all those opportunities pass you by. The best and most successful companies are all working with LinkedIn and other social media in order to maximize their revenue and their popularity worldwide.

If you need more advice on how to make it on LinkedIn, I suggest you star by making a page and getting used to the way this place works. This will give you a much better idea of how you need to do things and you will be able to cover the basics on your own, so by the time you learn the advanced information, you will have a solid foundation.

When you run a business, or even if you’re just starting a new business, one of the things that you should be thinking about now in the age of technology is social media. Every business should have its own pages on social media, whereby you can interact with customers, try and engage new leads and clients, and publish new information or products and services.

Creating the perfect LinkedIn profile for your business can take a while to get right at the beginning, but it can have a huge effect on generating traffic to your website and customers to your business.

1. Make Sure Your Logo Can Be Clearly Seen

Don’t use a profile picture which is one of your products or a picture of your staff members. You can post images like this later on, but for now you should concentrate on your logo and making sure that the main images associated with your business become well-known. Once you have decided on a logo, you should stick with it rather than try to change it depending on the comments you receive online.

2. Stay Professional

Your LinkedIn profile should look professional in every single way. You wouldn’t create a personal LinkedIn profile for employers to find which didn’t look highly professional, so don’t be tempted to do so from behind the curtain of your business. Respond to enquiries in a timely and polite manner, and build professional relationships with other users and businesses.

3. Include Some Information About Your Business

It’s tempting to leave the ‘About You’ section until later, but when it comes to your business, you don’t want to miss any opportunities. Waiting just a few days to update this section could mean that you miss out on several potential leads for the business. Before creating any social media profiles, you should have a website and mission statement set out, which you can use to provide LinkedIn users with more information about your business.

4. Appear Approachable

Some people are interested in contacting a business through LinkedIn, but just don’t feel like the business is approachable. This is often a combination of many things, such as announcements that you are very busy lately, unfriendly-sounding updates or blog posts, and pictures which lack color and personality. It’s almost like creating a personality for your business. You should try to achieve a personable, friendly, professional and credible appearance for your business.

Your marketing message communicates to the world what your business is about. And your LinkedIn profile is the perfect place to both develop and spotlight your most focused marketing message.

LinkedIn is one of the most important online tools for marketing your professional services. However, only a very small percentage of users post effective summaries of their business on their LinkedIn profile.

Your LinkedIn profile needs to telegraph the essential message and value of your business. This article shows you exactly how to do that.

Your Business Headline

The very first item someone reads on your profile is your business headline. And almost all of them are bad.

They are typically titles (Patent Attorney, Management Consultant, Personal Chef) or labels of what people do (tax preparation specialist, training in communication skills). None of these are effective messages because they don’t communicate how the professional can help their clients.

Instead, you want something like John Nemo’s:

“I Show B2B Sales Professionals, Business Coaches and Consultants How To Generate Leads + Add Clients using LinkedIn”

_____

John’s profile headline tells whom he works with and the specific outcomes he helps them achieve. Any reader will immediately know if they’re interested in knowing more. His headline taps into “WIFM” – What’s in it for me.

I use John Nemo as an example because I learned how to create a great LinkedIn profile from him. His business (and book), LinkedIn Riches, specializes in, well, exactly what that headline says.

He’s one of the top experts on how to use LinkedIn to attract new business. Ignore him at your peril.

He emphasizes that you don’t want to have people guess what your benefit is to them, but to telegraph it in clear, simple, results-oriented language.

Then he goes on to outline what should be in the Summary Section of your LinkedIn Profile.

First of all, the Summary has limitations. You can’t use bold or colored or large size type. But you can use all caps for the headings for each paragraph that makes your summary sections pop out, increasing readability.

For instance, the first section should be titled WHAT I DO (or WHAT WE DO) and simply expands on your headline.

This is what John’s looks like:

WHAT I DO: Since 2012, I’ve helped B2B Sales Professionals, Business Coaches, Consultants and other professionals all over the world leverage LinkedIn and Webinars to generate leads, add clients and increase revenue.

_____

Pretty clear and simple right? Who I help and how I help ’em.

Then he writes about how he does it:

HOW I DO IT: I provide “do it yourself” online courses, 1-on-1 private and group coaching and written materials that help Business Coaches & Consultants discover how to generate more business for themselves using LinkedIn and Webinars.

_____

Note that this section mentions the services he offers and then comes back to the outcomes he helps his clients achieve. The value is as clear as day.

Next is about where you’ve seen John. This is all about credibility or “social proof”:

WHERE YOU’VE SEEN ME: I regularly blog for and have been featured by national publications, podcasts and organizations including:

• Business Insider

• Entrepreneur On Fire

• Inc. Magazine

• LinkedIn

• Social Media Examiner

• The Business Journals

• The Huffington Post

_____

These are all the places where John has published articles. If you don’t have places you’ve been published yet, don’t worry, you can leave out this section or add it at a later time.

This is the fourth of five articles about the 5 Pillars of Marketing, my marketing model that helps get your marketing on track. 5 Pillars article here.

Next, write about the people and companies you work with:

WHO I WORK WITH: I’ve personally rewritten and optimized the LinkedIn profiles of A-List Entrepreneurs, Bestselling Authors, Business Coaches and Consultants including:

• Chris Brogan

• Bob Burg

• John Lee Dumas

• Mari Smith

• Tom Ziglar

• Dan Miller

• Jairek Robbins

• Ray Edwards

_____

Now, if you’re a self-employed professional with any online savvy, you’ve probably heard of some of these people. For your summary, mention the kinds of people or organizations you’ve worked with and also a list of some of your clients.

Next, insert a couple of quotes from your happy clients:

WHAT OTHERS SAY:

• “When it comes to LinkedIn, there are pretty much three people I listen to, but only one has ever dropped new business right into my lap the way John Nemo did. You know me. I don’t recommend people lightly. John Nemo is worth your time. Jump on this!” – Chris Brogan | New York Times Bestselling Author, Consultant & Speaker

• “John Nemo took my LinkedIn profile page and ignited it in a way I hadn’t seen done before. After witnessing John’s expertise up close and personal, it’s easy to see why he’s been crushing it on LinkedIn the past few years. Simply put, when it comes to LinkedIn, John Nemo is the real deal. Can’t wait to share more of his LinkedIn knowledge bombs with the rest of Fire Nation soon!” – John Lee Dumas | Host, Award-Winning “Entrepreneur on Fire” Podcast

_____

With a little work, almost any self-employed professional should be able to come up with a few good testimonial quotes like these. And you only need two!

Finally, a little on your background:

MY BACKGROUND: Author of 7 books, former Associated Press Reporter, Award-Winning PR Director and Social Media Consultant, Talk Radio Producer.

_____

John has helped many self-employed professionals craft a powerful business summary on LinkedIn. He really gets what a clear marketing message is all about.

Notice that there’s virtually nothing about the process of what he does; his writeup all about results. It’s concise and focused and it’s a fast read which is so important online.

Now you know what your LinkedIn Profile Summary should look like. Time to sit down and emulate John Nemo’s approach for your own LinkedIn Profile.

Cheers, Robert

Are LinkedIn Groups Dead? Not According to LinkedIn.

You may already be aware of the value that LinkedIn brings to your small business social media efforts, especially in a B2B space.

For several years, another benefit to using this social media channel was the ability to create your own branded LinkedIn group that helped boost brand visibility.

However, in 2017 LinkedIn made several changes to their layout and groups seemed to take a back seat. They were suddenly hard to find, plus their API was altered, which prevented social scheduling apps like Hootsuite from connecting.

These changes drastically reduced the engagement and activity that was once found in many thriving groups.

As a result of these changes, many assumed the death of groups was imminent.

But LinkedIn issued a release in September 2018 stating that they have rebuilt groups from the ground up. This announcement boasted new features with promises of more to come.

Maybe LinkedIn groups aren’t dead after all! I certainly was a fan of them and found a lot of value in the community of like-minded professionals I connected with there.

So in anticipation of LinkedIn groups being resurrected, keep reading to learn about creating your own LinkedIn group so your business can benefit from the increased brand visibility it brings.

Benefits to Owning a LinkedIn Group

A LinkedIn group enables your business to have a discussion board related to your industry. It gives you the opportunity to create a special interest group of individuals that is specific to your product, service and/or expertise.

Groups also provide excellent visibility for your business, since every member who is a part of your group will have your logo visible in their profile. One of the upcoming promised features is having the group discussions show up in the member’s LinkedIn feed, which will help foster meaningful engagement.

Group owners now have the ability to post different types of media such as videos and images. Immediate notifications are also new, so real-time conversations can happen easier than ever before.

There are well over a million groups in LinkedIn. To make yours stand out you will want to encourage active participation by having members of your group post articles and updates for other group members to benefit from.

How to Create a New LinkedIn Group

Log into your account and click on the “My Network” tab in the top navigation and select “Groups” from the left-hand side menu. These groups are the ones you are currently a member of.

At the top right side of the page, click on the “Create a new group” button. This will open a pop-up window for you to fill out.

Use your company logo or a logo specific for this group. Your logo will serve as an identifier of your group on the main group page.

When creating your group name, be sure to select a name that clearly represents your group’s mission or subject area.

Fill out a brief summary that concisely describes what your group is about. When writing this, be sure to emphasize the benefits for someone to join. Tell people why should they join and what they will get out of being a part of your community.

The longer “Group rules” description gives you room to fully explain what topics will be discussed, how people can participate and the rules you set for such participation.

Standard or Unlisted? You Decide Which Access Type

When determining the Privacy option, the “Standard” selection means it is open for anyone to join your group. Your group will be found in the search results and existing members can invite others to join.

The “Unlisted” option does not appear in the group search results and only group owners and managers can invite people to join.

Now you’re ready to click “Create” and your group has been formed!

Invite New Members to Join

Your next step is to invite people to join your group by showcasing the benefits of being a part of your community.

Create an initial welcome post inviting new members to post an introduction about themselves and encourage them to be engaged and keep the discussions going.

Keep the momentum by adding posts and being engaged with others. With consistent effort, soon your group will be a thriving community.

LinkedIn is perhaps the most elusive of online tools for many new social networkers. Many people first come to it and cannot understand how it can possibly help them with business and network building. But that is simply because, on the surface, LinkedIn appears to be starkly formal with little opportunity for interaction compared to the colourful interface Facebook provides, or the face-paced exchanges found in Twitter.

But while LinkedIn is definitely more of a professional network than it is a social network, when you explore all it has to offer you will find it to be not only a place where you can thrive and establish your renown as a professional, but also where you can find a virtually endless supply of information and referrals, as well as have access to thousands of people in your target audience.

While there are so many aspects to explore in LinkedIn, today I just want to share one very quick tip with you that can help you make LinkedIn work for you as you build your online platform, either for your book promotion (as I work primarily with authors) or other business.

What’s the tip?

To establish yourself as an expert.

How do you do that? You do this by answering questions posted by others in the LinkedIn Q&A. You can access the Q&A by clicking “more” in your LinkedIn profile, and then selecting “Question”. When you are prompted, select “answer questions.”

When people post questions on LinkedIn, they have to put them in at least one category and/or subcategory. I recommend searching for a topic that is closely related to your specific area of expertise. I frequently answer questions on writing/editing, technology, internet marketing, etc. Have a look around for subjects that match your expertise most.

When you find a question you think is “juicy”, and which you feel confident about providing information, read over the replies received so far and then give an answer that gives added value to the person who asked the question.

BE GENEROUS in your reply. Share from your expertise and experience. Give links to outside sources you believe would help the person. The key to this process is to focus on what you can GIVE the other person. There is nothing more irritating to me when I go on LinkedIn and read replies to questions that are obvious spam or simply attempts to gain attention. Invariably it backfires on the person. But if you are generous with your wisdom and your professional knowledge, people really appreciate it.

After a question has been online for some time (usually 7 days), it closes unless the person who asked the question keeps it open. After it closes, LinkedIn sends a message to the person who asked the question requesting that they select the best answer to their question. If your response is selected as the “best”, you then become ranked as an “expert” in that particular subject. Your expert status becomes a permanent part of your LinkedIn profile. Every time your answers are selected as the best, you gain another accolade as an expert.

Why would you care about becoming a LinkedIn Expert?

Establishing yourself as an expert on LinkedIn not only helps others see that you are knowledgeable on specific subject areas, but it also shows people that you are a generous and helpful person. People can also click your expert status and read exactly what kind of knowledge and information you are sharing, which further establishes your credibility. The long-term benefit of this is that people will come to trust you both as a professional and as a person. If you think that will not have a positive impact upon your business (and even your book sales) think again.

Because LinkedIn is a professional network, as opposed to a social network, it does indeed have limitations on how you can market yourself compared to Twitter or Facebook, for instance. But in helping you establish your professional credibility, LinkedIn becomes a great balance to the other components of your online platform.

There’s a lot more to LinkedIn, what to speak of blogging, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and many other essential components in your online promotion toolkit. If you wish to deepen your understanding, I cover these in great detail in my course Spirit Authors Module 2: “Pre-Publication Marketing Musts” (or “80 Days to Build Your Online Promotional Platform”).

There is no doubt the importance of a well put together social media profile for professionals in today's world. Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Google+ are some of the more popular social media platforms anyone with an internet connection can create. They are also the most thought about in terms of presence. But what about LinkedIn? I remember when LinkedIn first came out. I didn't think anything of it but set up a profile anyways. Today, LinkedIn has over 477 million profiles ranging from individuals, businesses, and groups. It is the number one professional networking platform existing today. If the number of users isn't impressive enough, the number of profile views for the first quarter of 2016 was 45 billion!

WHY SHOULD AN ACTOR CONSIDER USING LINKEDIN?

Why not? Seriously, in all actuality, what harm is there to spend the time to set up your professional profile? Outside my rhetorical question, let's look at the practicality of what LinkedIn really is. Your LinkedIn profile serves as a digital resume. The features of LinkedIn help you organize your professional career and helps keep track of all the projects, experiences, volunteer work and education you get involved with. LinkedIn helps others who may be interested in working with you to get a quick snapshot of who you are – your focus, your character, and your expertise.

Being an actor, you are in one of the most competitive industry. Anyone who has been in the entertainment industry for any length of time knows it is about networking. It is about who you know and the projects you've been a part of. Sure, posting videos on YouTube helps, having a Facebook Fan Page helps, and possibly even your own web page. Social Media profiles like Twitter, Snap Chat, Instagram, and others help to engage with your audience and fans along with increasing your marketability. But what about your professional image? Fan's are great, however, you are in "show business". The most important part of that term is "BUSINESS". If you are not developing your professional and business side, it doesn't really matter what fans you have because fans won't have anything to admire if you are not getting work!

HOW CAN YOU UTILIZE LINKEDIN?

The best aspects of LinkedIn is the ability to showcase projects, write articles, get endorsed by peers, and receive recommendations from those you have worked with. Casting Directors, Producers, and filmmakers are always in ready supply of talent. Same with Agents and Managers. Like it or not, you must show them, why you are worth their time. You may be able to act or sing, hit your marks or deliver on a dime. But, you are not the only one. More importantly, if you can't show up to work on time, cause problems or have an attitude, it does not matter how much talent you possess, your personality will overshadow all of that. We all want to work with professionals. They want to know who YOU ​​are. This is where LinkedIn can serve you the most.

EXPERIENCE SECTION – The best part about this section is the ability to highlight the experience you have. Are you with an Agent or a Management Company? What work have you done in the past that relates to the Industry or otherwise? What did you do? How did you do it? What did you learn? What skills did you acquire? This information is great to know for someone looking to work with you.

PROJECT SECTION – Like a resume attached to the back of a Headshot, projects can be showcased on LinkedIn under the experience it coordinates with. For example, you work with ABC Talent Agency. While there, you were cast for project 1,2,3. You worked with XYZ actor / director / casting director. You have the ability to describe the character you played and other details more fully than what you could do on the back of your resume.

ENDORSEMENTS – We all have skills. Some skills fit directly with our field of work, others outside our field of work. Different experiences and projects cause us to utilize different sets of skills we possess. The Endorsement section showcases your most prominent set of skills. Further, this section allows for friends, peers, and network to endorse those skills. There is nothing more powerful than others who say … yes, he / she has these skills and they are developed to the point I am willing to endorse and recommend them for it.

RECOMMENDATIONS – Imagine working with an Actor such as Leonardo DeCaprio or a Director like Stephen Spielberg and they give you a recommendation because of your work ethic or your performance on set! That kind of endorsement would do wonders for your marketability. People like working with likable people. The best way to show you are such a person is through recommendations. This section highlights who you are beyond your performance. It shines a light on your character, your behavior, and work ethic. My advice is to build up your recommendation as much as possible. It only benefits you in the long run.

VOLUNTEER SECTION – Do you like charities? Are you involved with Non-profits? Why are you involved and what do you do with them? LinkedIn gives you the ability to talk about the charities you work with. Can you imagine what this does to your likeability factor? Can you imagine how this will help you stand out above the rest and the opportunities that can come from this one section alone!

CONCLUSION

Different social media platforms serve different purposes. Most focus on gaining followers, sharing your thoughts or moments in time. Others are about showcasing your professional experience. LinkedIn has become the platform for showcasing your professional side. The best part about LinkedIn is it continues to grow. You have the ability to link your profile to other website and social media platforms (IMDB, Website, Fan page, etc), you have the ability to take the time to develop a quality digital resume that will be accessible to those interested in working with you while building a track record of recommendations, recommendations, articles, and experiences. Don't do what I did and wait to develop your profile. Get started today!

TIPS AND TRICKS

Remember, this is about promoting your professional side. To throw up some information in a half-hearted manner just to have it up is not going to work well in the long run. An old saying in the restaurant business is this … "The presentation is everything"; meaning, you may have the best tasting food, but if the presentation is bad, the food isn't going to taste as good. This is because we eat with our eyes first. This is no different with your resume or your profile. You want it to stand out and you want it to be as professional as possible. So here are some tips to help you out.

1. PHOTO – If you don't have a photo, you don't have a profile. As an Actor, getting a professional photo (headshot) is part of the business. Especially if you are a junior talent, each time you update your Headshot, you need to get in the habit of updating your photo on LinkedIn with the new Headshot.

2. BACKGROUND IMAGE – The new layout for LinkedIn allows for a background image. Use this feature! It adds a unique touch to your profile and allows you to express yourself. Just be sure to keep it professional.

3. ARTICLES – LinkedIn allows you the ability to write articles. This is a great way to express yourself and your experience. Writing updates when you get off a project talking about your experiences can help tremendously. Writing about things that matter to you will also help others to learn more about you and the types of projects that will really help you shine. Plus, every time you post an article, your connections automatically get a notification. This builds up your presence in your industry.

NOTE: B e sure not to post restricted or Non-Disclosure information about any project you are working on … If you have any doubts, contact your agent, manager, or legal professional first. It is better to be safe than sorry.

4. ENDORSE OTHERS – Help your fellow actors out! They are struggling just as much as you are. If you work with someone who you feel does a great job or has a great character, let others know! Believe me, they will think very highly of you and I can guarantee, they will be just as willing to give you an endorsement and recommendation in return.

5. STAY PROFESSIONAL – Whatever you do, keep professionalism in the forefront of your mind for LinkedIn. This is not about harassing casting directors or filmmakers to be in their next film. This is not about posting what you did over the weekend or talking bad about others. Believe me, social media, in general, is a double-edged sword. You should not be doing this on any of your platforms, however, LinkedIn is the last place you want to do this. You will be Blacklisted quicker than you think!

I hope you have a presence on LinkedIn, because it’s one of the biggest sources of professional networking available right now. They’ve just added to their worth by introducing the new LinkedIn job search app for iPhone. According to LinkedIn’s research, forty percent of their members are looking for jobs on the site using a mobile device. If you are not one of those people, I’m here to encourage and guide you to do so sooner than later!

Why Make An App For That?

The faster you apply to an opening, the more apt you are to be considered for the job. This makes immediate action very important but a bit tricky if you are trying to keep your job search private. This app addresses that issue by acting independently of your network – everything you do with the app is discreet.

You can customize and streamline your search using advanced search filters like location, industry, company, job title, or seniority level. The app will also make suggestions based on your LinkedIn profile, saved searches, and jobs you have looked at. These characteristics are both unique and priceless when job searching, which could really help you narrow your search to relevant job prospects.

You can whip out your phone and check the latest results while your coffee cools and research a possibility right there, looking at the company’s profile and seeing if you know anyone who works there. You can apply and on your next break see if a recruiter viewed your application. The app even reminds you about job openings due to expire, too. So, now your down time can be spent more productively and you can stop procrastinating on other social media sites!

The Thing You Need To Do First

This app is pretty nice for expanding the usefulness of being on LinkedIn, but you have to be part of the network first. If you aren’t, or haven’t done much to your profile because you don’t have time, it isn’t going to be very helpful. I highly encourage you to make time and focus your effort on refining your LinkedIn profile.

Our LinkedIn Profile Development service can get you up and active in the most-used social network for professionals. Then you’ll see why so many of your professional peers are relying on this site for connections. Once you have a profile on the site, you can explore the potential and see why it is so popular.

Creating amazing content, in general, is an absolute necessity for your brand. On top of that, you have to consider the various social media networks of which you are a member. The interactions that result from the content that you post are essential for your business. One important thing to remember is that the content that you share will not (and should not) necessarily be identical on every social network.

The nature of your content
The top social network for professionals is LinkedIn. The content that you share on LinkedIn must be a really tight fit for the people with whom you interact because you not only want those people to read what you are posting, you also want them to share your content as much as possible (with the right people). If that is going to happen, you will have to make sure that your content is compelling, valuable, educational, and thought provoking. That may seem like a tall order but once you get a few successful pieces of content under your belt, it will become easier to write content that possesses all of those qualities.

Now that you have wrapped your mind around those concepts, you have a responsibility to give your target audience members what they want so that you can get what you need as well. There is no doubt that everyone will benefit if you write great content that appeals to other people enough for them to want to share it with other people whom they know and trust.

You may wish to look at it in another way. If you share valuable content, you will have proven yourself as the expert who you know you are, they will come off as looking really good, and their friends and colleagues will have amazing content in their hands.

When it comes to sharing valuable content on LinkedIn, there is another positive result that will come from that as well. It will help you to build up your network of contacts, which are very important for your brand and your business.

There are several different things that you can do that will cause other people to share the content that you post on LinkedIn:

• Write a title that makes them stand up and pay attention: Because of the sheer volume of content on the Internet, your title must stand out above the rest. That means that you need to start with the first part of the content that they will see, which is the title. The title needs to be everything that it should be (and then some). Not only must your title grab the attention of your readers but it must go way beyond that. Your title must be compelling, intriguing, and exciting. It is important to remember here that your title must encapsulate the entire article and if you don't deliver on your promise in the title, you will lose credibility with your readers.
• Wrap your mind around your target audience: It is critical to your success that you understand exactly who your target audience is and to have a strong sense of what they want to read. You certainly want to give them whatever they want and need, if at all possible. Your title (and the rest of the article) should address whatever problem they are trying to solve and have not been able to solve up to this point. The concept that should be motivating you is, WIIFM (What's In It For Me?). No matter how amazing you and your business may happen to be, if you are not able to solve their problem (s), you won't get anywhere with them. It is that simple.
• Make sure that your content is unique: People who are involved with LinkedIn have a great deal of content that is at their fingertips at any given moment. That is exactly why your content must stand out and it must always be different enough for others to pay attention to. This is where your creativity will come into play. It must, in fact. The last thing that you want to do is to share content that sounds just like everyone else's content. It just doesn't make any sense. If that were the case, your readers would read the first thing that they see, with no discrimination whatsoever. Try to think outside of the box as much as you can. There is no doubt that you are capable of doing that. It may just take a little bit of practice.
• Always use your own voice: It is essential that you find your voice and use it on a consistent basis. Your voice is what makes your writing and your business uniquely yours. Your voice will get you very far. It will be the reason why other people want to connect with you, want to read your content, and want to eventually buy what you are selling. Never pretend to be someone you are not. People will know that you are not being genuine.
• Connect with your readers emotionally: Without the emotional connection, you will not be able to build a relationship. The emotional connection is why humans relate to each other. They feel similar feelings and have had common experiences. It is a well-known fact that people buy products and / or services based on how those products and / or services or the person who is doing the selling makes them feel. They will never buy for any other reason. With that in mind, you need to make sure that you get it right every time.

Conclusion
LinkedIn is the top social network for professional people. The content that you share through LinkedIn must be unique and extremely effective for that particular social network. The story that you tell through your content must be memorable and it must touch your readers profoundly. Always keep in mind that your content, which must be very well written, should also be posted with appropriate frequency as well. More is not always better but too little is not effective either. If you share effective content, you will not only please your readers but you will also make them feel that they want to share that content with other people whom they know and trust, which is exactly what you want them to do.