How to Build Your LinkedIn Following

YOUR LINKEDIN QUESTIONS ANSWERED! 

Do you have questions about your LinkedIn profile or how to use LinkedIn? Send your questions to our LinkedIn Expert Debbie McCormick and she’ll answer them in the magazine! Use info@LinkedInBossLady.com with subject Dear Debbie. 

Dear Debbie: 

How do you get a following on LinkedIn? I post stuff but it never gets any traction. Bruce H. 

Frustrating, isn’t it? 

Thank you for the question, Bruce, I totally get it. Lots of other people have been asking the same thing. 

In fact, I was just talking to one of my clients this morning about this. Here’s what I told him: 

LinkedIn participation — meaning having a strong, fully optimized profile and taking advantage of all the ways LinkedIn lets you talk to your ideal clients — is one of the foundations of your marketing strategy (the other being your website). 

Marketing is a long game. Unless you’re Apple and you’ve taken out a million dollar billboard above the Sunset Strip promoting the long-awaited new iPhone, you’re not going to go zero to 60 in 30 seconds. 

First, you have to have that above-mentioned profile. If you have a badly written profile, any traffic you create will do you little good because your profile doesn’t promote your genius properly. 

It’s like putting a 10-year-old photo on Match.com, then when you meet the guy/woman who has become interested, they think “Ugh.” That’s what happens when you put out great content, then someone looks up your skinny profile and thinks, “Meh.” You’re not going to get a second date. 

If you don’t have that profile, everything else you do is a waste of your time. So that’s the first thing. 

Then if you don’t reach out consistently, it’s hard for anyone to catch on to you. Makes sense, right? 

So whether it’s writing posts, uploading videos or staying in touch with your network, you have to do  it consistently. 

If you’re at all intimidated by that thought, start with once/week posting videos or writing content. You want to aim for posting something three times/week, but this will get you into the flow. 

Your content should consist of information that will help your ideal clients. You are NOT selling; you’re giving information that will help them, just like I’m doing for you in this column. Of course give them a way to get in touch with you, but this is your opportunity to be of service to them. As soon as they realize that you’re out there to help them, not yourself, you’ll be the first person they think of when they need your services or products. 

I’ll talk about identifying your ideal clients next week. If you don’t know who your ideal client is, you won’t know what to say when you’re communicating with/marketing to them, which muddles your message.