20 Tips and Tricks to Becoming Successful on LinkedIn

1. Treat your LinkedIn profile like a website. Make sure it is formatted, clean, and most importantly, filled with search engine friendly keywords.
2. Create a LI Profile Word template to create and edit your profile. This will guard against spelling and grammatical errors, and can be easily copied into other social media platforms to keep your branding unified.
3. Keep you name clean – LinkedIn can’t find you if your name looks like this: Smith, PhD. John A. (johnsmith@gmail. com) LION  941-555-1555
4. Keep your photo professional. Headshot only. LinkedIn doesn’t like logos.
5. Keep the “What are you doing now” function updated.
6. Personalize your “public profile” to reflect your name, your business, or your area of expertise: http://www.linkedin .com/in/linkedin expert
7. Personalize your websites by using “other” to reflect you business name and not just “My Website”
8. “Experience” is not your resume. Make sure the jobs you choose to list support each other.
9. “Experience” is a great place to list “wins”, different companies you have helped, seminars or workshops you have presented, a mini-shot of your personal website.
10. Make sure you list your certifications and licenses as well as traditional education.
11. Get Recommendations!
12. Join strategic groups – then invite strategic members to build your network.
13. Create a group – fill with interesting and relevant information.
14. You only get 3000 invitations in a lifetime – use them wisely.
15. Don’t IDK!
16. Use “Answers” sections to position yourself as an expert, get exposure.
17. Use Answers section to get free, valuable advice.
18. Always be courteous.
19. “Give to” more than you try and “get from” other LinkedIn members.
20. Be relevant!