I realise this might sound like a strange question. When I first start working with new clients, most tell me they want to avoid LinkedIn, or use it as little as possible to achieve whatever goal they have. They’ve usually changed their outlook by the end of the session!
But I love it there. I genuinely find it energising (although, like everyone, it can also really annoy me sometimes).
The newsletter I sent out two weeks ago focused on how to work out what energises you. There was an exercise at the end asking you to identify three things that had energised you that week. It would be good if you could keep those things in mind while you read this, because this edition is about how to find more of that energy within LinkedIn.
If you’re new here, you can see a list of previous newsletter editions at the bottom if you want to go back and follow the trail on how we got here.
So how can LinkedIn bring you that energy?
LinkedIn is changing. It’s always been fast-paced, with hundreds of enhancements and new features over the last few years, and it can be hard to keep up.
But the bigger change is that LinkedIn is getting better at showing you content that matches who you are and what you’re interested in. It looks at signals from your profile and your activity, and tries to match you with relevant content, people and opportunities. The idea is that your feed should become more interesting and more useful to you.
Which leads to an important question:
Does your profile reflect your energy?
I know that might seem unlikely. LinkedIn is probably something you use for work, to help you network, find a new job, or build your business. But LinkedIn says their goal is to build a feed that reflects what you find valuable and helps you navigate your professional journey.
To do that, it looks at information on your profile, for example, your industry, location, experience and skills. So you need to find a way to reflect the things you actually want to be doing for work in those areas. Your headline and your about section are particularly important here.
Have a look at those sections on your profile and ask yourself:
What are the things that energise me at work? Are they represented here?
If they’re not, start making some changes.
Skills are essentially keywords, so they’re fairly easy to add. In your Experience and About sections, think about using natural language and full sentences to describe what you do and, importantly, what you enjoy. Make sure the key themes show up more than once across your profile.
There’s also the industry field, which is slightly hidden. You get to it from the edit pencil on your contact card at the top of your profile. It’s possible you’ve never changed it since you set up your account. This field matters because it links to the categories recruiters use when they search for people, so it’s worth making sure it’s as close as possible to what you actually do. It’s a very frustrating field, there is no drop down list you can pick from. It’s what’s known as a “market value field” which means that you need to have a industry which is in the list that recruiters use to search. It seems to make no sense therefore, that there is not a pick list. The best thing you can do is start typing words that relate to your industry until one comes up that most closely matches the industry you work in. If you really struggle, let me know. I can give you a suggestion, or send you a link to a Microsoft code list which may help give you some ideas.
You need to engage with content
LinkedIn pays attention to what you engage with. If you interact with content you like, you should start to see more of it, especially if it relates to the themes on your profile.
If you don’t see things you like in your feed, go and find it. Try searching for keywords related to the things that energise you, then use the post filter and see what comes up. Over time, your feed should start to change and show you more content on topics you’re interested in, from both your connections and people outside your network.
This matters more than you might think
For a long time, I’ve been telling clients that engaging with content is way more important than writing your own. I still think this is true.
When should you post?
Whenever you’re ready. Or never at all. Going back to energisers and drains, I know that a lot of people will feel completely demotivated at the idea of having to come up with ideas of what to post about.
If you want to post then do, but stick to the areas that energise you. LinkedIn will take that as another thread that connects your profile, your engagement and your posts.
So to sum up
It’s not just about what you say about yourself in your about section. It’s about the signals you create through your profile, your content, and how other people engage with you. All of that helps LinkedIn understand what you do, what you care about, and what you might be known for.
They are taking steps to reduce those annoying posts that end in “Agree?” or are using engagement pods to gain more traction. This is excellent news.
So when you make your profile more reflective of what energises you, and you engage with content around those things, you’re not just improving your feed.
You’re also making it easier to be found for the kind of work you actually want to do. You will start to be known for certain topics. Now that is powerful.
Next time
I’ll talk more about how to find the people and the jobs that can help you move further towards the work that gives you energy.
Do you need some help with LinkedIn?
I love working 1:1 with people and showing them how LinkedIn can work with them, rather than feeling like something they have to do. If you’d like some help, just reply to this email or send me a message on LinkedIn and we can have a chat.
Thanks for reading, and let me know how you get on with making LinkedIn a bit more energising.
See you next time,
Sarah
PS If you’d like to join my email list, please subscribe here. I aim to send a newsletter every 2–4 weeks, occasionally more often, but probably never more than fortnightly.
PPS – if you’re interested in reading more, then the information in this newsletter was based on a recent article by Tim Jurka, who cites himself as the bearer of good news at LinkedIn, there are references to ‘Generative Recommenders and LLMs‘ which basically means that there is a ranking system which evaluates content (posts, articles, newsletters, videos), and compares them to what users share about themselves, to be able to match content to people. The idea is that your content feed should be much more interesting to you.
*If you’ve just subscribed, or you’ve not yet subscribed, you won’t have seen the previous editions of the newsletter. I’ve added links here in case you want to read them as they do all kind of build on each other:
