What is LinkedIn? | Oak Academy

What is LinkedIn?

by Hüseyin Oğur 12 min to read
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How to boost your linkedin profile?, How to improve your linkedin profile as a jobseekers?

LinkedIn is the world's largest professional network on the internet. You can use LinkedIn to find the right job or internship, connect and strengthen professional relationships, and learn the skills you need to succeed in your career. You can access LinkedIn from a desktop, LinkedIn mobile app, mobile web experience, or the LinkedIn Lite Android mobile app. A complete LinkedIn profile can help you connect with opportunities by showcasing your unique professional story through experience, skills, and education. You can also use LinkedIn to organize offline events, join groups, write articles, post photos and videos, and more.

LinkedIn is a social network that focuses on professional networking and career development.

You can use LinkedIn to display your resume, search for jobs, and enhance your professional reputation by posting updates and interacting with other people.

LinkedIn is free, but a subscription version called LinkedIn Premium offers additional features like online classes and seminars, as well as insights into who's searching for and viewing your profile.

Like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and a dozen others, LinkedIn is a social network. And like other social network, it's owned by a big tech company: Microsoft.

But unlike most social networks, LinkedIn is a professional networking site, designed to help people make business connections, share their experiences and resumes, and find jobs.

The site also offers things you won't find in other places, like a full-featured career board, where you can search for and apply for jobs. Many employment services are now compatible with LinkedIn — when applying for a position, you may be able to share your LinkedIn profile, which sometimes means you won't need to painstakingly enter your work experience into a long online form.

What is in it for you?

It should be clear that LinkedIn is a tool you can use to enhance your professional networking and job searching activities.

Many people use the site to grow their contacts and find career opportunities, and the Jobs section of the site is a powerful tool for finding and applying for jobs. There are settings on LinkedIn that let you alert recruiters that you're actively job searching as well.

Some people use LinkedIn to enhance their professional reputation by making posts in the news feed, and commenting on other people's posts.

LinkedIn Premium is a subscription version of LinkedIn that adds a number of additional features, such as online professional development classes, insights into who's viewing your profile, and the ability to instant message anyone on LinkedIn, even if they're not in your network.

Why Linkedin?

You've heard LinkedIn is important, but is it actually? And if so, why? We take a deep dive into the networking platform.

Did you know that LinkedIn, the professional social networking platform, has actually been around longer than Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, and Instagram? But it's more relevant now than ever.

Why? Because it hosts more than 800 million professional profiles, which means nearly an unlimited supply of network connections and job opportunities. From seeking a new job to maintaining your personal brand, using LinkedIn is an important part of being a full-fledged professional in any industry these days.

If you are job-seekers, or salesperson, you should be boost your Linkedin profile as your qualification, skills and your job’s keywords. Here some important tips to improve your Llinkedin profile:

1. Choose the right profile picture for LinkedIn.

Your profile picture is your calling card on LinkedIn – it’s how people are introduced to you and (visual beings that we are) it governs their impressions from the start. There are some great posts explaining how to pick the right profile picture on LinkedIn – but here are some quick tips to start with: make sure the picture is recent and looks like you, make up your face takes up around 60% of it (long-distance shots don’t stand out), wear what you would like to wear to work, and smile with your eyes! I had experienced that profile picture is effective job-seekers.

2. Add a background photo.

Your background photo is the second visual element at the top of your profile page. It grabs people’s attention, sets the context and shows a little more about what matters to you. More than anything, the right background photo helps your page stand out, engage attention and stay memorable. Here you can choose background as your jobs, shortly show your job.

3. Make your headline more than just a job title.

There’s no rule that says the description at the top of your profile page has to be just a job title. Use the headline field to say a bit more about how you see your role, why you do what you do, and what makes you tick. If you’ve got sales reps at your company who are on the ball with social selling, then take a quick look at their profile page headlines for inspiration. They will almost certainly have more than their job titles in there.

4. Turn your summary into your story.

The first thing to say about your LinkedIn summary is – make sure you have one! It’s amazing how many people still leave this field blank when creating their LinkedIn profile. Your summary is your chance to tell your own story – so don’t just use it to list your skills or the job titles you’ve had. Try to bring to life why those skills matter – and the difference they can make to the people you work with. Don’t be afraid to invest some time, try a few drafts, and run your summary past people you know. This is your most personal piece of content marketing – and it’s worth the effort.

5. Declare war on buzzwords.

Buzzwords are adjectives that are used so often in LinkedIn headlines and summaries that they become almost completely meaningless. Our regular rankings of the most over-used buzzwords include terms like ‘specialised’, ‘leadership’, ‘focused’, ‘strategic’, ‘experienced’, ‘passionate’, ‘expert’, ‘creative’, ‘innovative’ and ‘certified’. Now I’m not saying you can’t describe yourself as these things – or that they don’t matter. However, just using these words won’t convince people that you have these qualities. You need to demonstrate them as well – both in the way you describe yourself, and in the way you use LinkedIn profile features to show what you’re about.

6. Grow your network.

As a jobseeker you should connect with recruiters, talent acquisitions, headhunter,

7. List your relevant skills.

It’s one of the quickest of quick wins on LinkedIn – scroll through the list of skills and identify those that are relevant to you. Doing so helps to substantiate the description in your Headline and Summary, and provides a platform for others to endorse you. However, the key here is staying relevant. A long list of skills that aren’t really core to who you are and what you do, can start to feel unwieldy. Take time for a spring clean of your skills list every now and then.

8. Spread the endorsement love.

Endorsements from other members substantiate your skills and increase your credibility. How do you get endorsed on LinkedIn? For starters, go through your network and identify connections who you feel genuinely deserve an endorsement from you – that’s often the trigger for people to return the favour. Don’t be afraid to reach out with a polite message asking for endorsement for a few key skills as well. Remember though – relevance matters. Reach out to people whose endorsement you’d really value.

9. Manage your endorsements more proactively.

Once endorsements start to come in, you might find that they skew the emphasis of your LinkedIn profile in ways that don’t reflect who you are. It could be that your core area of expertise is content marketing for example, but the people who’ve worked with you on events are more enthusiastic endorsers. Be proactive in managing your endorsements list using the edit features in the Skills section of your profile – you can choose which to show, and which to hide.

10. Take a skills assessment.

A skills assessment is an online test that enables you to demonstrate the level of your skills, and display a Verified Skills badge on your profile. Data shows that candidates with verified skills are around 30% more likely to be hired for the roles they apply for – and displaying proof your abilities strengthens your personal brand more generally as well. Displaying the results of your skills assessments is entirely voluntary, and you can retake the tests as often as you like before showing that you’ve passed.

11. Request recommendations.

Endorsements give people viewing your profile a quick, visual sense of what you’re valued for. Recommendations take things a step further. They are personal testimonials written to illustrate the experience of working with you. There’s a handy drop-down menu in the Recommendations section of your profile that makes it easy to reach out to specific contacts and request recommendations. Take the time to think about who you would most value a recommendation from – and personalise your request. It’s worth the extra effort.

12. Showcase your passion for learning.

When you complete a course on LinkedIn Learning, you’ll have the opportunity to add a course certificate to your LinkedIn profile. You do this from within the Learning History section of your LinkedIn Learning account – where you can also send updates about your learning to your network if choose. also you can share your certifications and courses from coursera.org, or bootcamps.

13. Share relevant content from your LinkedIn feed.

It’s one thing to have a network of connections on LinkedIn – it’s far better to have an active role in that network, appearing in your connections’ LinkedIn feeds in a way that adds value for them. Sharing relevant content with your network is one of the most accessible ways of doing this. You can make a start by keeping a close eye on your LinkedIn feed, and sharing content that you find genuinely interesting – and that aligns with your point of view.

14. Add comments.

Sharing is great – but it’s just the starting point. When you add comments to your shares, you give yourself greater prominence within the feed and start to express why you think a particular piece of content matters. Well-expressed comments also enable you to share a broader range of content. It might be that you don’t agree with a point of view but still find it interesting, for example. A comment that can express that viewpoint starts to establish your opinion and thought-leadership. It’s also more likely to draw additional comments, which then raise your profile across LinkedIn. Bear this mind when you’re writing your comment – and make sure you’re saying something you’re happy for people to associate with you.

15. Follow relevant influencers for your industry.

Following relevant influencers on LinkedIn helps to put a range of interesting content in your feed, which you can then share with others when you think it adds value. It also helps to give context to your LinkedIn profile, demonstrating your passion for what you do.

16. Publish long-form content – and use it to start conversations.

The more you share and comment on content, the more you establish your expertise and thought-leadership credentials on LinkedIn. Publishing long-form posts is the natural next step to take. A great starting point is to monitor the response that you get to your comments and shares. Are there particular subjects and points of view that seem to resonate with your network? Are there comments that you have shared which you feel you could expand on in a post? Evolving your thought-leadership in this way keeps it real – and keeps you plugged into the issues your connections are talking about. Be ready for your long-form posts to start new conversations too. Keep an eye on the comments and be ready to respond.

This tips and strategies are general and you can use all of them at the start, you can use keywords to improve your linkedin profile.

Writer

Hüseyin Oğur

LinkedIn Expert