How to attract the right people to your LinkedIn profile

I know that some people hate online networking. More and more, I’m seeing friends and clients on Facebook and LinkedIn complain about being bombarded and Spammed on Facebook Messenger and even WhatsApp.

Ugh? Really? I hate that sort of network marketing. It’s so unprofessional. I’m wondering whether it really works and whether the clients they get really last. And the energy it must take … though I’m sure lots of it is automated and scheduled.

I’d much rather have fewer but more genuine conversations.

I love LinkedIn for networking and I know the people who join my LinkedIn Kickstart learn to love it too! (Though maybe not as much as me!). Of course, in order to get noticed on LinkedIn, you have to get the essentials right on your profile first.

However once you have a strong profile that says who you are, what you do and how you do it, there are 3 key things you need to attract the right people (and therefore the right opportunities) to your LinkedIn profile.

1. STRATEGY

When you have a profile that is working hard for you, the first key to your success on LinkedIn is to have a strategy. A wolf doesn’t rush into hunting down prey without a plan. Without knowing what it wants to catch and how it’s going to catch it.

Your strategy is about knowing WHO you are, WHAT you do, HOW you do it and WHY it works.

That’s the first step in your strategy.

Once you have clarity on that, your next step is to get clear on your goal. What do you want to get from networking on LinkedIn? Is it about speaking opportunities? Is it finding freelance opportunities? Is it converting conversations to clients?

When you are clear on your goal, you need to figure out HOW you are going to do it. In other words, to create your plan. For example, if it is speaking opportunities – what sort of speaking opportunities? Who do you need to have conversations with? What do those conversations need to be about?

When I talk to clients, often I find that ‘accountability’ has been forgotten. Who is holding you accountable and how?

And finally, in order to determine whether your strategy is working, how are you measuring your success?

2. CONSISTENCY

The second key thing to make a bigger impact on LinkedIn is consistency. Your personal and business brand is entwined with your consistency on LinkedIn.

Consistency in terms of your brand – who you connect with, what you say and what you share. Is this consistent with WHO you are and WHAT you do? If your network is a bit random, then guess what, you’re going to get random results.

People will be unclear about what it is that you do and what you stand for. One of the reasons why we spend time working on values in my LinkedIn Challenge. It’s important to be clear on your values so that whatever you say or do is consistent.

Consistency is also about how often you comment, post and share on LinkedIn. Consistency doesn’t have to mean daily.

If you publish an article monthly, that is more consistent than publishing six articles in May, then nothing until September when you publish just one article. It’s about not showing up as a zebra one week and a giraffe the next.

3. AUTHENTICITY

The final key to attracting the right people to your profile, after strategy and consistency … it’s authenticity.

Authenticity to me is about being who you say you are. It’s wrapped up around consistency. For me, authenticity is one of my absolute core values and that’s why it’s part of the work that I do with my private and corporate clients.

It is so much easier to be you than to try to pretend to be somebody else. Or changing colours to suit your environment, like a chameleon. Yes of course, we all have our ‘telephone voice‘ and use a different tone or language depending on our audience.

And that’s not to say that there are times when you don’t feel you have the confidence or the expertise; days when you do need to ‘feel the fear and do it anyway’ (from the Susan Jeffers book). BE who you want to be.

For me, as a leadership and career confidence coach, it’s about demonstrating my own leadership and confidence.

It’s about being clear on your values and working in alignment with those values. It’s about not sharing everything willy-nilly but raising your self-awareness to be mindful of what you share and what that says about you.

The 3 key things

Strategy, consistency and authenticity: these are the 3 key things that I share with my clients and which we explore in more detail in my LinkedIn Kickstart too.

Start by having a clear strategy in place. Be consistent and most importantly, be authentic.

What about you? Do you have a clear strategy in place? Are you consistent in how and when you use LinkedIn? Are you authentic and true to yourself on LinkedIn? If you’re not sure of the answers, maybe you need to join the next round of the Kickstart.

p.s. if you know you are missing out on opportunities on LinkedIn, this is how you can work with me:

1. If you prefer to learn in a structured environment with bite-sized lessons, you’ll love the LinkedIn Kickstart.
2. If you have invested in courses before and not finished (or even started them), or you know you are more likely to get it done with personalised one-to-one attention, then my LinkedIn Quick Fix is for you.