There are so many social media platforms these days, and many of them are specially designed for different purposes.
LinkedIn is one of the social media platforms trending today, but not everybody knows exactly what LinkedIn is about or why they should even be on it.
In this article, we will be explaining to you everything you need to know about LinkedIn, and we will tell you how you can benefit from being on the platform.
To make things simpler, let’s say that LinkedIn is a social media platform specially designed for professionals. This means that it is just like having Facebook for your profession or what you do for a living.
On this platform, you can connect with other people who are in the same professional field as yourself, and you can connect with companies who are recruiting people with your skill sets.
Nevertheless, even though we have pointed out here that LinkedIn is social media for professionals or business oriented people, we cannot leave it at that.
There is so much more to know about LinkedIn before you go ahead to create a profile and start enjoying its benefits, so we would go further now to explain the basics.
Introduction to LinkedIn
Whether what you do is offer a service from your living room, or you’re a small business owner, a student, or even a marketing executive in one of the Not So popular companies, LinkedIn is the right place for you to connect with people if you intend to take your profession seriously.
Before people knew about LinkedIn, it was common to hear of professional gatherings where people attend to network with other professionals in their field. Some of the aims of such meetings were to meet people, get jobs, make collaborations, and lots more to improve businesses or careers.
With LinkedIn, you can do all of these and more from the comfort of your living room, your office, or even on the go.
Just the way you connect with people on Facebook, you can do the same on LinkedIn by adding them as connections. You can communicate with your connections by sending them private messages, or through any of their contact information made available.
The good thing about LinkedIn is that you know everything about the person you are about to communicate with before you start chatting with them. This is because each person neatly sells themselves by listing out what they do and the services they offer in their profile.
My favorite thing about LinkedIn is that it is straightforward to use as it’s interface can be compared to that of Facebook. If you’re familiar with Facebook, and you know how to use it very well, then you should have no problem finding your way around LinkedIn as the interface is user-friendly.
What are LinkedIn’s main features?
Every social networking platform has main features that users must get familiar with, and LinkedIn is not left out. In this segment, we will be discussing all of Linkedin’s primary features.
Home
Once you’ve created a LinkedIn account and you successfully log in, you land on the homepage, which feature is your news feed. The news feed is made up of posts made by your connections and posts by pages or companies that you follow on the platform.
Profile
As you may guess, the profile features everything about you. Your photograph, your location, and what you do will be featured right at the top.
Then on the bottom part, you can customize other information such as your education, your work experience, and additional essential information that you might add to your traditional CV. This explains why certain companies may prefer to look at your LinkedIn profile than request for a copy of your CV.
My Network
This can be likened to your Facebook friends list. Under my networks, you can find all the people you are connected with, and if you hover your mouse over the “My network” option, you would see more choices of people you can add like alumni and other people you may know.
Jobs
One of the reasons why a lot of people join LinkedIn is to get jobs, and the job option is where you can find the different job listings that are posted on the platform every day by employers.
LinkedIn suggests jobs that may interest you by selecting jobs that tally with your professional experience and your interest. I want the job listings to be carefully tailored to match your location and your current profile.
Interests
LinkedIn is not as boring as you may begin to imagine. Aside from your connection with professionals, you can decide to follow specific interests on the platform.
You can decide to follow groups according to location and interest, and you can also choose to follow company pages that you find interesting.
LinkedIn also has a SlideShare platform for slideshow publishing, as well as an educational platform known as Lynda that you can benefit from. This means that you can learn on LinkedIn even as you make connections.
Search bar
One thing that sets LinkedIn apart from other platforms is its fantastic search feature. With LinkedIn search, you can easily filter your results according to different customizable Fields.
A single click on “advanced” just by the search bar will help you find specific companies, professionals, and even jobs.
Messages
When you want to begin a conversation with someone you have on your connection, you can do so by sending them a private message on LinkedIn. In this message part, you can include pictures, attachments, and lots more.
Notifications
Just like other social media platforms, LinkedIn also has a notification feature where you are notified about actions like an invite to join something, when you have an endorsement by someone, or when you should check out a post that you might find interesting.
Pending Invitations
This is where you find invitations from other professionals on LinkedIn. What you are supposed to do is to go through the invitation from the Professional and decide whether you would want to approve or not.
Once the request is accepted, the person leaves the pending invitation and becomes part of your connection.
All of these are the primary features that you would Encounter when you first sign up for a basic LinkedIn account.
However, you can dive deeper and get some more specialized options and details when you take your time to explore the platform on your own.
You may even discover that Linkedin’s business services or their premium account upgrade may be beneficial to you.
These options offer LinkedIn advertising to expand sales or get more people to know about your business or service.
What You Can Use LinkedIn For (As an Individual)
From the information featured above, you can already tell what LinkedIn is and the kind of people you can find on the platform.
However, it may still be complicated if, as an individual, you do not know how you can benefit from LinkedIn if you’re not searching for a job or looking to connect with other professionals.
In this segment, we will tell you many different things you can do with LinkedIn as a person so that you do not just create an account and abandon it.
Get back in touch with old classmates and colleagues
If you have lost contact with former teachers, colleagues, or classmates, and you would like to get in touch with them, you can do so by using my network section on LinkedIn.
The easiest way to find people you would like to reconnect with him by syncing your email with your LinkedIn account, and they would automatically be suggested to you.
Use your profile as your resume
Your LinkedIn profile is a form of resume like we have earlier mentioned, and it is used these days in place of the traditional CV.
So the next time you want to apply for a job, you can include it as a link to a cover letter or to an email instead of attaching your CV.
Some jobs would instead ask for your LinkedIn profile than request a copy of your CV, so it is best to have a neatly crafted profile.
Find and apply for jobs
LinkedIn remains one of the best places to find verified job openings on the internet. LinkedIn would recommend jobs that fit your profile to you, but you can also search by using the search bar.
Find and connect with new professionals
The beautiful thing about connecting with new professionals in your field and other fields is that you learn from them, and you never know what opportunities might come out of meeting and communicating with them on LinkedIn. For this reason, it is best to be on the platform and establish meaningful connections.
Participate in relevant groups
On LinkedIn, you cannot connect with just anybody you feel like connecting with. Sometimes you will have to join related groups and participate in those groups to meet with people that have like interests with you.
Blog about what you are knowledgeable about
If you’re one of those people who like to write about what they know, then LinkedIn is one fantastic place to have your writings read by thousands of people. LinkedIn has its very own publishing platforms that allow you to publish your work, which will also show up on your profile and increase your credibility in your niche or Field.
Linkedin premium packages
LinkedIn also has premium packages that allow you to do lots more on the platform such as recruitment, finding more jobs and also to improve the visibility of your business.
However, the premium packages are not free, and you can choose any of the packages that fit your specific needs.
If you come across features that are not available to free users, you should already know that you can access these features on the LinkedIn Premium packages.
Here is a list of the premium packages, to make it easy for you to choose which best suits you.
- LinkedIn Premium Career: $29.99 monthly. For professionals who are looking to get hired and go further in their careers.
- Linkedin Premium Business: $59.99 per month. For business owners that are looking to grow their business and build a network.
- LinkedIn Premium Sales: $79.99 per month. For businesses and professionals looking for targeted leads.
- LinkedIn Premium Hiring: $119.99 monthly. For businesses and professionals looking to recruit and hire employees.
LinkedIn is available on iOS and Android, so all you have to do is visit your app store and download the LinkedIn application, create an account, and start connecting with amazing professionals like yourself.
We hope that you found his article very helpful. Please, do not hesitate to the leader comment below if you have questions, or if there are any additional details you feel should have been added.
We look forward to interacting with you very soon.
