LinkedIn Just Got Better – A Guide to Boosting Your Productivity
LinkedIn’s Mission is simple: Connect the world’s professionals to make them more productive and successful.
Over the last 6 years I have watched LinkedIn introduce new features to make it easier for us all to be more productive and successful, many of which have worked. They have abandoned some features which were not well-received, but that does not prevent LinkedIn from innovating, which keeps things fresh and exciting - and for that I am appreciative.
Just look at this list I have collected of some of the newer features!
In this blog article I would like to highlight 4 innovations that I think it is worth those of us in automation distribution to pay attention to. So let’s go!
My first suggestion is for each of you to take the time to verify your identity with CLEAR.
NO, it is not yet a necessary step for everyone, but it is a good idea to verify your identity to build authenticity into your profile. Especially if you and your company are doing any recruiting on LinkedIn, verification becomes essential because it guarantees to any applicant that you are who you say you are!
Above, here are three of the different screens you will see with CLEAR:
The image on the left is the screen giving the instructions for how to verify your company affiliation. It usually involves CLEAR sending an email to your company email address, but some companies have arranged for a password to verify your affiliation with them.
The middle image shows a verified LinkedIn account. Notice the verifications area with the checkmark? These are the people who are verified by clear.
Completing your CLEAR verification involves taking a picture of yourself AND a piece of recognized, verifiable government-issued identification, both of which are used in the CLEAR verification process.
If you are not sure whether or not you have verified your account, look for a shield when you “View Profile”:
Once your application process has been completed, you can count on it taking a bit of time for the verification to go through. The sooner you apply, the sooner the account will be verified!
My second suggestion is to try to take advantage of the “Drafting with AI” feature.
I have to say that I am still not completely satisfied when I am using any Artificial Intelligence for writing tasks. Especially where social media is concerned, it is not good at all for incorporating hashtags and @-mentions, and adding them in later is clumsy. At this point I also find this LinkedIn version ignores brand. For both of these reasons, this feature does not create text in any way I find helpful.
Perhaps this is something that will come with time, but to use this AI currently on LinkedIn you must first create a post that is at least 30 words long anyway! The AI merely rewrites it in a different way. Doesn’t save ME any time!
What the AI can do is take something that sounds like I wrote it and make it sound like someone else wrote the same information, but without the links… and without the hashtags… and without my personality or brand! I am not sure that is what my connections want, and it certainly is not what I want!
The reason I recommend trying it out is because I believe that understanding how this works will help us all to better recognize these seemingly “personalized” requests we’ve been getting in our direct messages lately. For now there is a “tell”, but I believe we should get acquainted with the technology before it begins to improve!
My third recommendation is to try using all of the different posting options available on LinkedIn.
To begin, start a post. On the mobile APP, touch the “more” ellipsis in the bottom right to see all of the mobile posting options. The posts common to both the desktop and mobile versions are shown along the top in the above image. They are all available on both LinkedIn versions.
If you want to create a graphic from one of the LinkedIn templates this is not available on the laptop version and may only be accessed on your phone through the LinkedIn mobile APP.
My final recommendation is one of the LinkedIn improvements I have appreciated the most over the past year.
I love how easy it now is to send posts to members of my different messaging groups in the LinkedIn Direct Messaging system. The drop-down menu for sharing posts is awesome. Previously, sending posts to multiple people was cumbersome and gave lots of opportunities for error. I was sure glad to have a mouse!
First-world problems, I know… but it was time consuming and I always worried that, with the interruptions of emails, calls, and other work, I would miss sending a post to one of the groups.
That doesn’t happen with this update. Now, when you want to send a message, you click “send” on the selected post, you select the groups and individuals to whom you want to send it, you type a message telling why you are sending the post, and click “Send Separately” and everyone gets it. Super Easy! Super Fast! Super Great!
I have been presenting these Marketing Minutes at AHTD Meetings since Fall of 2020, and as a member benefit, AHTD has been featuring them all in the post-Meeting newsletters and publishing them as blog posts on the AHTD website.
To date, I have shared 20 Marketing Minutes with you, covering topics like the basics of hashtags and @-mentions, how to participate on LinkedIn, and the importance of your notifications tab. I have also shared information on the more advanced topics of organizing your social marketing plan, as well as establishing an employee advocacy program.
If there are people on your team who need materials and instruction to help them make the most of LinkedIn, look no further than AHTD! Save yourself the time and effort of pulling together your own LinkedIn Training Manual and consider sharing this resource with your employees. Forward the captured link to the person on your team who needs it most – your sales manager, your marketing manager, your HR manager! There is someone at your company who wants to improve their use of LinkedIn!
It is always great to be sharing these Marketing Minutes during AHTD meetings and in our monthly newsletters, and I look forward to continuing these discussions in the time between now and our next in-person meeting!
Consider signing up your in-house marketer for our next AHTD Marketing Roundtable – Winter or Summer Series, and please remember to tag us on your LinkedIn posts so we can share with our networks exactly how AHTD members are #doinghightechbetter, together!