LinkedIn Influencer? So What?
Becoming a LinkedIn influencer is an opportunity for career-driven individuals to build their network of contacts, share engaging content, and expound their industry expertise on a platform that offers an unlimited professional experience. LinkedIn is a powerful personal branding tool that is much more than an online job directory and digital resume.
As far as professionalism in the digital sphere goes, an aspiring influencer should ensure their reputation and trustworthiness are seamless upon first impression. It is much harder to convince your connections of your influencer status (as on social networking sites) if you do not have a professional profile that reflects this. Becoming an influencer will give you the motivation to make sure your public profile is up-to-date with a business-appropriate profile picture, a unique URL, and an appealing summary which will draw future connections and make your profile stand out. Ensuring your skills have been endorsed and your work ethic recommended by colleagues or industry professionals is also beneficial, smoothing the transition to LinkedIn influencer as you begin to portray an authentic background for users to subscribe to. This is a thoughtful and strategic process, and offers long-term rewards and opportunities to pinpoint what will set yourself apart from others.
To be an influencer is to also be seen as a contributor, content creator, or an advisor within your industry. Publishing original long-form articles which function as blogposts, or videos which examine a topic, are excellent ways to strengthen your personal brand’s scope. Additionally, more formal documents like white papers and infographics also serve a function to industry-specific segments of LinkedIn. Not only will this reflect your authority on a topic on a digital platform, but it will allow you to become a better communicator and thought-leader among your LinkedIn connections. Your passions may also be conveyed to others in the way you deliver your message by your stance on a topic, providing other users the excitement of engaging in a conversation, as well as alignment with your personal brand. As a LinkedIn influencer, you can wield your voice to interact with others on trending topics, bringing value to a targeted group of followers that attract more traffic and organic search results.
LinkedIn also functions as a middle-ground for distributing content on your personal blog, transferring your readership to an increasingly potent platform. LinkedIn influencers regularly circulate their content on social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram to generate further engagement, as well as posting to selective forums or discussion boards where insightful discussion can be made. Promoting your content is not the side-effect of becoming a LinkedIn influencer; it is a primary function, and the more effort you put in, the more ways you will be rewarded with a following that will be interested and responsive to your contributions. One of the key values of becoming a LinkedIn influencer is the human connection which arises through these interactions.
Considerable social and cultural profit can be made by becoming an influencer on LinkedIn as the business networking site continues to grow in users and functionality. Current LinkedIn influencers are experts in building relationships with like-minded professionals, and their stature within the platform suggests that authenticity and credibility are essential factors to increasing reach within your professional community. If you are uncomfortable with publishing long-form articles, utilise LinkedIn’s native video feature; if you are uncomfortable with recording yourself, share a short-form newsfeed post about a current event. There is significant personal value for anyone wishing to become an influencer who is willing to share their worldview and experiences.
Becoming a LinkedIn influencer is an effective way to build your confidence in the digitisation of professionalism, and many will find that building a supportive network through content and the celebration of achievements is reason enough to become invested in the platform.