Link∙Ability

I highly recommend Link∙Ability to anyone who would like to harness the power of LinkedIn to enhance their career or business. It’s a quick, easy read packed with practical advice on what you can start doing or improve on, to achieve your goals.

I’m a big fan of LinkedIn because it’s a place for ideas. I’m an even bigger fan since I have started to gain Writing for Councils clients through my presence on the platform. If you also work with clients from businesses or organisations (B2B), the numbers are compelling:

• 80% of B2B leads come from LinkedIn versus 13% on Twitter and 7% on Facebook
• 65% of B2B companies have acquired a customer through LinkedIn
• more than 50% of all social traffic to B2B websites and blogs comes from LinkedIn
• 50% of LinkedIn users say they are more likely to buy from a company they interact with on LinkedIn.

The author, Lynnaire Johnston, doesn’t assume everyone wants to be going helter skelter, doing everything that’s possible on this social media platform. Instead, she offers a clear summary of four key strategies, for which I have noted the key takeaways for me, personally:

• Connecting (ideally have 1,000 connections before investing too heavily in publishing content online)
• Publishing (avoid link posts without much content, as these will be repressed by the LinkedIn logarithm)
• Engaging (if people like your posts, take the time to go to their profile and engage with at least two of their posts)
• Direct messaging (try out leaving an audio message … which can be done using the LinkedIn app on a phone, but not on the desktop version of LinkedIn).

Wherever you are currently at with your approach to LinkedIn, you will find useful pointers on the next best steps to take. The last section of the book helps the reader to think about which of the four strategies are most relevant for them (connecting, publishing, engaging and direct messaging). This will vary depending on the reader’s goals (such as to attract clients, find a new job or develop connections within an industry) as well as the size and type of the organisation.

This section is very reassuring as a one-person business, because it helped me to see that I was on the right track with my use of LinkedIn, but could make valuable tweaks to my approach to be more effective. These changes don’t require much more time than I currently spend on the platform but are likely to make a significant difference.

Link∙Ability is available from: https://www.wordwizard.co.nz/link-ability/