How to promote your Work through LinkedIn

how-to-promote-your-work-through-linkedin

Meredith Katz, Author Marketing, Wiley

May 01, 2014

2013 marked professional networking site LinkedIn’s ten year anniversary. By the end of its first decade, the company netted 225 million members, with a growth rate of over two members per second. ^[1] Now with 277 million members, LinkedIn has the largest number of users of any online professional network in the world. ^[2] "LinkedIn is, far and away, the most advantageous social networking tool available to job seekers and business professionals today," according to Forbes. ^[3] “I’m often asked, ‘How important is it for those already near the top of their careers to be utilizing resource tools such as LinkedIn?’ Most times, these questions come out of not fully understanding what you can do with a LinkedIn account and profile,” says career coach John Crant of SelfRecruiter.com ^[4]

So, how can you harness LinkedIn’s vast audience and successfully showcase and disseminate your published content?

Utilize your strongest promotional tool on LinkedIn - your profile. Make your profile a positive tool in promoting the circulation of your published content:

Tell your entire story. Assess potential omissions in your profile - have you listed all of your occupational experiences? Education? Awards? Prior accomplishments may seem small, ancient, or downright irrelevant, until you shift your perspective. LinkedIn users visiting your profile probably don’t know the narrative of your career. A lapse in your profile is a missed demonstration of growth and of ambition. An earlier achievement may not reflect your current work but it will enrich your profile ‘story.’ By establishing the scope of your achievements, you grow common interests, expand your circles, and increase access to you and your published content.
Frame your profile. By positioning your most relevant accomplishments first, you increase the likelihood that a visitor will read them and continue reading. Your publications will default to the bottom of your page. Reposition ‘Publications’ to the uppermost portion of your profile, under ‘Experiences.’ Select ‘Profile,’ then choose ‘Edit Profile.’ Click the arrows on the top right side of the box you wish to move. Hold and drag the selected portion of your profile to their desired spot.
Make it powerful and concise. Avoid verbosity. Cut out unnecessary qualifiers and weak verbs. Capture your accomplishments and other users’ attention with résumé action verbs, leaving them more compelled, and with more time, to read your published content.
Be public. With LinkedIn’s vast user base, consider the scope of potential users as well as users you’d like to target your work to. Set your profile to ‘Edit.’ Scroll down to the ‘Connections’ section and select ‘customize visibility.’ Play around with the privacy controls of your account, such as tailoring your activity ‘broadcasts’ and ‘feeds.’ Examine how traditional approaches of disseminating your published content (e.g. live networking or print collateral) compare to technology driven ones. Set attainable goals for your LinkedIn use (such as increase monthly views by X%, make X number of connections) engage with the platform and measure your success according to your set goals.
Highlight your work. When a paper is published or a book goes to press, add it to the publications section of your profile. . Title all publications precisely, list authors in contribution order, and add a live link to your articles. If relevant, consider including the number of citations your article has received, the Altmetrics score, or links to positive press coverage generated by your book or article. By listing your published work you create additional portals to your LinkedIn profile, promoting traffic to your page and circulation of your current and previous published content.
Showcase your honors and awards. Have you won an award? Received an honor? Been featured in a major blog or magazine? List it under ‘Honors & Awards.’ Consider attaching related visuals such as corresponding images, videos, presentations, URLs, or documents as illustration of your achievement.
Add images, videos, presentations, and documents. LinkedIn’s launch of the Professional Portfolio marked an increase in functionality, encouraging users to showcase their work in a new way - through upload of images, videos, presentations and documents. "From the analyst who makes annual predictions on tech trends to the 3D animator who is looking to fund a new short film, the opportunities are limitless for how professionals can now use the LinkedIn profile to help showcase these unique stories in a visual way," said Udi Milo, project manager at LinkedIn. Featured content must be public URLs hosted by LinkedIn or one of the approved services (including sites like YouTube, Pinterest, SlideShare, Spotify, TED and Twitter). Attached files are limited to 100MB size.To add images, documents, presentations, or videos to your LinkedIn profile, set your profile to ‘Edit.’ Under each of the entries in your ‘Summary’, ‘Experience,’ and ‘Education’ sections choose the square with a symbol icon. Click this to upload a file or link to content you wish to share. You can also move media samples from one section to another. Do this by clicking the drop-down menu under ‘Move this media to’ and choose the section of your profile you'd like to move it to. Then click Save. To rearrange items within the same section of your profile, click and drag them to the spot you want. Mix up your visual media with a variety of figures, images, photos, screenshots, video, and presentations. Remember, each time you change your visual content in Professional Portfolio, it displays on the news feed, showcasing your published content to other LinkedIn users.
Create an ORCID ID. Open Researcher and Contributor ID (ORCID) is an open, non-profit organization that maintains an international registry of unique researcher identifiers and a method of linking research activities to those identifiers. You can include your ORCID ID on your webpage, when you submit publications, apply for grants, and in any research workflow to ensure you get credit for your work. ^[5]