How To Use LinkedIn To Market Yourself as a Freelancer
With the growing digital age, so comes the ability to work from home while still earning a viable living. More and more Millennials are looking to freelancing and contract jobs as their primary source of income over corporate careers. However, choosing a work-from-home or freelance contract over a desk job creates a new set of struggles. Often, work can be scarce or contracts can end unexpectedly leaving freelancers in a hurry to find something new. Sites like Elance or UpWork are designed to make finding contract jobs easier, and they make it easier for businesses to commission the work they need without having to create an official position within their company.
Writers, graphic designers, HR professionals, and even educators are turning to these sites to find work either on top of their established careers or as their sole means of work. However, just using these sites alone to market yourself as a professional in your industry isn’t always enough. Social media is on the rise in digital marketing with over 2 billion people worldwide using their accounts for personal or business use. While Facebook and Twitter are perfect for businesses looking to generate traffic and attract customers, LinkedIn is a growing platform for young professionals and businesses to connect. Every second two new LinkedIn accounts are created with demographics showing geographical reach in nearly 200 different countries and territories. Even though 29% of social media users already have LinkedIn accounts, most do not know how to effectively market themselves online. However, there are a few easy and quick methods you can use to better market yourself within your industry.
Always Have A Professional Profile Picture
Although this seems like an easy enough step to follow, many new profiles do not come accompanied by a profile picture at all. While you may not feel comfortable showing yourself on social media, it is important to give prospective clients something to look at when viewing your profile. Profiles with display pictures are visited 11 times more often than profiles with no picture. If you choose to not use a picture of yourself, create a logo or business image to associate with your field or skills. Even using a simple logo of your name and contact information is more effective than having nothing at all. If you do choose to use an image of yourself, make sure to choose a professional and well-taken image. Many professionals are choosing to purchase headshots for their online business accounts. This is one viable option you can use. If you don’t have the budget to hire a photographer, using your phone’s camera is just as effective. Choose an image that clearly shows your face with minimal distractions. Although it may seem fun to post pictures with your friends, these images do not show you as a professional. Save those images for personal Facebook or Twitter accounts.
Complete Your Profile Quickly and Thoroughly
Social media accounts are perhaps the easiest accounts to create. Enter an email address, password, zip code, and your name and you’re officially a member. However, many users create social accounts and immediately forget they have them. A large percentage of LinkedIn accounts are incomplete or inactive. In order to generate more views and leads to your account, make sure you complete all required fields quickly. Even if you don’t have time to make in-depth changes, adding the skills you possess and your latest employer can rank you higher among other professionals in your industry. Once you have time to dedicate to your profile, LinkedIn will prompt you with questions to help enhance your market. Think of LinkedIn as your online resume. Update it often with new jobs and skills as you acquire them. Over 380 million unique skills have been added to LinkedIn user profiles. It may seem time-consuming at first, but once you begin to get leads, you’ll find it extremely beneficial to continue working on your profile. For a more in-depth account, consider paying the monthly subscription for LinkedIn Premium.
NEVER Turn Down a Connection
LinkedIn isn’t like other social media accounts in that you don’t post updates about your daily life, location, or regular pictures of your family. Accepting a friend request from someone you don’t know on Facebook may seem scary, but accepting a connection from someone on LinkedIn may lead to more jobs and potential clients. Many businesses search for industry leaders to find contract professionals to assist in content creation, online marketing, or graphic design. These businesses are often represented by people you won’t know or recognize; however, it is important to make these connections in order to give businesses looking for your expertise updates on when you’re available for new work and skills you may have that they will find useful. Profiles with over 100 connections are more likely to be viewed as accredited leaders in an industry. More connections will increase your ranking among other professionals in your industry and increases your likelihood of showing up as a top-ranked user. Furthermore, more connections equal more endorsements. Endorsements are used to let potential employers or clients know which skills you are most fluent in.
Post and Post Often
Like Facebook and Twitter, LinkedIn gives you the opportunity to post updates to your profile that will show up on your connections’ home page. When you’re marketing yourself as a professional, it’s imperative that you post information on your profile letting your connections know when you are available for new work, publishing new content, have examples of your work online, or are researching new trends in your industry. However, it is possible to oversell yourself online. When scrolling through home page posts, readers are more likely to look over “salesy” content than they are blog posts, articles, or images. Instead of focusing your posts on what you CAN do, instead focus your updates on new benefits you can bring to your connections. For example, if you’ve recently attended a conference related to your industry, let you connections know. They will see you more as a professional and expert in your area of work. Similarly, if you read an article you find interesting that relates to your industry, share it for your connections to view. This lets them know you’re keeping up with industry information and trends.
Publish Work Using the LinkedIn Publishing Platform
Nearly 50,000 long-form posts and articles are created on LinkedIn each week, and with new changes to the rules and regulations, more and more users have been granted the ability to publish content through the online platform. Think of LinkedIn Publishing similar to how a business may use blog marketing. It is a way for you as a professional to share what you know about your industry. 81% of social media users trust blog posts and articles over other types of published information. This statistic is similar for LinkedIn. Industry professionals who publish portfolio pieces and researched content to their LinkedIn profile are more likely to be taken seriously by businesses when looking for contract clients. Similarly, publishing content through LinkedIn guarantees more profile views, more connections, and more traffic to your account. Industry leaders and businesses can follow your publications to know when you create new content, and they can share this content with their connections leading to more credibility for you.
Attach Your Portfolio or Personal Website to Your Profile
Even though your LinkedIn profile often contains similar information to your personal website, it is still important to link your additional online platforms to your account. Whether you’re just starting out or you have an impressive portfolio of work under your belt, make sure your potential clients have a way to see what you can do. Empty skills or work history is the top reason potential clients don’t give someone a second look. If you have a way to prove you are a valuable asset to the company or client looking for your skills, you’re more likely to receive a positive connection and contract work. Make sure your connections know when you have added new content to your online portfolio or have updated your personal website with linked posts on their home page.
Use Keyword Strategy Websites to See What’s Trending In Your Industry
Perhaps the quickest and most crucial way to market through LinkedIn is with keyword tracking and analytics. Businesses and online marketers have been using keywords to gain traffic to their websites and personal blogs for years, but those same strategies can be used on your personal LinkedIn profile to ensure you get more views and, in turn, more work. Even though it may seem like simply adding your generic skills and work is enough, going one step more and researching which keywords are commonly searched for or used in your field can dramatically increase your traffic. Websites like Wordtracker have subscription services to show you the number of hits for each keyword related to your specific field. Using these analytics can help you add these keywords to your profile to attract more industry leaders to come across your account through search. In fact, LinkedIn tracks the most common keywords searched for in each field to see how they are being used to make connections.
