11 Things You Can Do With LinkedIn During the COVID-19 pandemic

Because of the global COVID-19 pandemic, many people have been suddenly unemployed or laid off, and most of us are fearful for our jobs.

This is a great time to look over your LinkedIn profile, update it as appropriate, and then start using this fantastic application to get the word out about you and your experience and skills.

I’ve optimized over 300 LinkedIn profiles for top executives of businesses of all sizes. Based on my experience, these eleven recommendations will dramatically improve your engagement.

1. Review your LinkedIn profile summary. Examine your LinkedIn profile with an eye towards getting engagement. Do you have a summary and is it up-to-date? Your summary should NOT be  copy of your resume. Instead, it is a story of you and your brand, which is how want the world to perceive you. write about who you are, what benefits you offer, any unique skills and abilities, and highlight any unique knowledge of experience you offer.
2. Review your experiences and education. These should not be copies of information  your resume – they should reinforce what you talk about in your summary. Write about how each of your experiences benefits your audience. Focus on benefits and accomplishments – not responsibilities. Use experiences and education to build up your credibility.
3. Review everything on your profile for spelling and grammar. There’s little that screams “unprofessional” as loudly as spelling and grammar errors. Get someone else to review it as well. Even better, hire a proofreader on a site such as Fiverr.com – you can get proofreading for under $25.
4. Get a professional photo. Look at your profile photo. Is it professional? If it was not taken by a professional, make an appointment with a photographer. Spend the money to get it right. People do judge a book by it’s cover, and your photo is your cover for your LinkedIn profile.
5. Clean up your previous posts. Go through all all the posts of any kind you’ve made in the past. Review them. Are they related to your profession or business? Delete  or edit anything that is not professional or that no longer applies. Delete anything that’s negative, related to politics (unless that is your profession), or argumentative.
6. Write articles. If you’ve got time, write articles related to your profession – the more the better.
7. Post links to relevant resources. Surf the web for articles relevant to your professional and post links to them in your newsletter. Don’t overdo it – one or two per day is probably the maximum. Include a brief synopsis about why it is significant to your followers and connections.
8. Review your privacy settings. Check your privacy settings. Your profile and everything on it should be visible to the world. I prefer to set my list of connections to private – no sense giving my client list to my competition.
9. Reach out to your connections. Go through your connections and send messages to them. Do NOT sell, at least not at first. Instead, open a dialog just like you would if you were talking to them in person. Tell them who you are and what you do, again without selling. I like to note something that stands out from their profile because it shows I took the time to research them in advance and doesn’t look like an automated message.
10. Read articles and posts from your contacts. Read the posts of your connections, then leave a comment, like, and share them. Always leave a nice comment.
11. Invite people to connect. You can do this directly (be sure to include a message with the connection request) or from within a comment on one of their posts.

If you can do some or all of these recommendations, you’ll find, over time, that you’ll get more and better qualified leads from LinkedIn.

Richard Lowe Jr

Richard is the Owner and Senior Writer for The Writing King, a bestselling author, and ghostwriter. He’s written and published 63 books, ghostwritten 40+ books, as well as hundreds of blog articles.