A little while ago, I wrote about using social media to help grow your messaging as an independent contractor during retirement. By now, you know that you can use social sites to gain practical experience that will help in unretirement. The first article was about Facebook. Today, let’s talk about LinkedIn.
What is LinkedIn?
LinkedIn is the world’s largest professional network with over 562 million members in over 200 countries. Most of us have LinkedIn profiles and know how to connect with people. But did you know:
- Over 20,000 companies post 3 million jobs on LinkedIn.
- 80% of the 146 million U.S. LinkedIn members want to have a mentor or be one to others.
Maybe you’re not officially looking for your dream job, but do you really want opportunities to pass you by? Even in unretirement, you want people to find you on LinkedIn.
How do you create (or update) your LinkedIn profile?
There are hundreds of articles that share great ways to structure your LinkedIn profile. Check out some of the best on the LinkedIn blog. If you want a couple posts that can help optimize your profile, check these out:
Creating a Killer LinkedIn Profile [INFOGRAPHIC]
A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words, Make Your LinkedIn Profile Shine [SLIDESHOW]
Your 5-day Plan for Learning More about LinkedIn
DAY 1 – Read articles of interest. Your home page will have articles that your connections are posting. This will give you a good sense of what your connections find interesting. Try to find content that both you and your contacts will enjoy. Because a little later on, you will want to share articles with your connections.
DAY 2 – Add to Your Feed. LinkedIn isn’t shy about making recommendations and you will find a few along the right side of your homepage. Trending topics are first, followed by recommendations of people or companies to follow (yes, you can follow companies). It’s a great way to expand your LinkedIn community.
DAY 3 – Check Out Suggested Features. Along the left side of your homepage you will see even more recommendations for LinkedIn Groups and hashtags. LinkedIn is trying to expand the use of hashtags so find a few that interest you – like maybe #unretirement and #retirement.
DAY 4 – Get to Know Your Dashboard. Your Dashboard can be found in your profile, right under your profile section. It offers a quick and easy way to understand who is paying attention to you. It also gives recommendations on ways to expand your interactions on LinkedIn.
DAY 5 – Write a Post. At the top of your feed is a box that says, “Start a post”. Since you’ve found articles in #1 above, share them with your connections. Please remember – LinkedIn has a business focus so save those vacation or adorable pet posts for Facebook.
BONUS! Publish an Article. That’s right, LinkedIn lets users publish their own articles. At the bottom of your new post box you will see a link to “Write an article”. This is your opportunity to share your expertise with the world! Once you do that, LinkedIn will create a page with all of your articles that everyone can follow.
There are a lot of things you can learn using LinkedIn and connections can be valuable. It should definitely be a part of your social media activity in unretirement. So go have some fun growing your community!
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