3 ways to bolster your networking efforts on LinkedIn

Regardless of whether you're an experienced professional or just starting out, LinkedIn can be an extremely valuable tool for networking — especially nowadays, with the pandemic still moving more people online for networking. With over 850 million users across over 200 countries, the platform provides an unparalleled opportunity to connect with other passionate professionals, as well as with potential clients, and business partners from all over the world. And, if you want to self-direct your career and training, LinkedIn can be a powerful tool for career advancement. However, in order to make the most of the platform, it's essential to take a strategic approach to networking. To understand this better, we spoke with Simone Anzböck, an international executive coach and consultant, during a recent Devex digital event. Let’s say you have some expertise in your given field, you already have an up-to-date profile on LinkedIn that showcases your abilities, and maybe you even react and comment to friends’ posts when they land a new job — how can you become more visible? There’s a risk that LinkedIn isn’t serving you beyond that of another social media platform. As Anzböck said, it’s a matter of “becom[ing] visible in the right places on LinkedIn and to the right people.” And that takes some skill. With this in mind, here are a few ways to bolster your efforts on LinkedIn and turn it into a powerful tool for networking. Stop scrolling and engage “Ninety-eight percent of people never engage on LinkedIn,” said Anzböck, choosing to scroll through their news feeds aimlessly instead. If you want to be one of the 2% of users who are making connections and building relationships, you need to be visible. That means three things: liking and commenting on other users' posts, joining groups, and using hashtags. “If you comment, your profile, the headliner of your profile, your picture [and] your name are going to be visible to everybody,” Anzböck said. When writing comments, Anzböck also suggested using hashtags “[It] is a thing that LinkedIn is increasingly going to use more to showcase relevant content.” Hashtags can also be followed to find relevant content and search for specific keywords in the search bar. Likewise, “There are tons of groups out there, a lot of them in sustainability [and] international development,” she said. Be helpful to other users One of the best ways to network on LinkedIn is simply to be helpful. “I believe in good social karma. If you give people things [and] if you help other people, it will come back to you,” Anzböck said. If you see an interesting article that might be relevant to one of your connections, share it with them. Also while remembering that “You don't have to do that publicly, you can engage with people in direct messages,” she said. Likewise, six people globally are hired through LinkedIn every minute, so if someone posts looking for a job, simply commenting to give them more reach can be extremely impactful. “Think about how you can connect people to each other, how you can connect information to people, or people to information,” Anzböck said while emphasizing to “think about the long-term gain of that relationship, rather than the short-term.” Train the algorithm One of the best ways to find more relevant content is by training the LinkedIn algorithm. This is no easy task, and as Anzböck pointed out: it takes time. The algorithm determines what content is shown in your feed, and it takes into account everything you do on the platform — from the topics you engage with to the people you connect with. “If you comment on content relating to human rights [and] hashtag people that write about it, the algorithm will show you more content like it [as well as the] second-degree connections that write about it,” Anzböck said. By proactively engaging with content that is relevant to your industry and connecting with key influencers, you can ensure that your feed is full of high-quality content that will help you bolster your networking efforts. However, she said it’s important to keep in mind and ask yourself what your goal is. “Assume you constantly comment on people's posts about dogs because you like dogs. ... The LinkedIn agreement will show you more posts, but they might not be relevant to your goal,” she said. “Be[ing] mindful about what you comment and like [is important] because you will get more of that,” she said. Another thing to keep in mind is that “You can tell the algorithm directly that you don't want specific content or even specific people; telling the algorithm I'm either not interested in what X person is posting, or I don't want to see this kind of topic,” Anzböck said.