Once you’ve created an effective LinkedIn profile it’s time to start promoting yourself. One way to promote yourself on LinkedIn is to find a way to establish your expertise. Being an expert is the best way to encourage your clients and customers to start coming to you rather than you having to go to them. When you’re viewed as an expert, everyone wants the information that you have.
A great way to start establishing yourself as an expert is to use Groups on LinkedIn. But, it’s important to be strategic in joining groups as well as active in the groups you join. Choose groups to join based on their relevancy to your niche and whether your target audience takes part in the group or not. Then once you join, introduce yourself and start sharing content that demonstrates your expertise with them.
You can share your own content as well as content of others. Remember to always provide commentary on every link you share. Don’t just randomly post a link to content, yours or someone else’s without making a comment on the focus of the content and your thoughts. This will induce discussion and give you a chance to show your expertise.
Don’t join too many groups at once. Pick two or three different groups to join so that you have time to truly participate. Before you choose a group, figure out what your purpose of joining is, and what you can do for that group. What answers can you give them and what problems can you solve for them? What expertise do you have to share?
Start slow when you join a group. You don’t want to step on any toes or appear arrogant. Start with introducing yourself, and then commenting on discussions. Then, be sure to start discussions of your own. Share content that you’ve written, as well as expert content that others have written with your own commentary.
Some ideas for content to share are blog posts, articles, whitepapers, research, and more. You can also curate content that your audience needs to see and share that with your comments, critique and explanations. Being free with information to your groups and your target audience will ensure that others view you as the expert that you are.
It’s very important that when other people comment on your posts and your information that you comment back when appropriate. Keep the discussions going with comments and answers in order to have more opportunity to showcase your expertise niche. Every time you answer a question or post a comment is a chance to show what you know about your topic. Be very professional with all your answers and communications on LinkedIn.com.