Our new blog series will help kick start your personal and professional brand on social media. We’ll cover looking your best, growing your network, sharing your story, and staying engaged. Read the last blog to learn how to improve your LinkedIn profile.

Your profiles look great and you are ready to connect with others! But your current network only includes a smattering of co-workers, past and present. Let’s help you make some fresh and impactful connections.

Who is in your bubble that would make a good professional connection?

• Colleagues in other departments
• Peers within volunteer groups you belong to
• Friends and neighbors outside of work

Who is not in your immediate circle, but would be a good connection?

• Alumni of schools or organizations you’ve belonged to
• Peers in similar roles at other companies
• People you meet at conferences
• Influencers in your field
• Authors of books, blogs, and articles
• Members of larger professional organizations you belong to

Connecting gets easier the more you do it. Here are a few ideas on how to reach out. Keep it short and to the point. In fact, LinkedIn has a character limit for their connection notes, so you’ll have to keep it brief.

You can always hit the connect button without an additional note, but the chances of someone accepting your invitation greatly increase if you reach out to them in a more personal way. Don’t take it personally if they don’t accept or never respond. It happens. People are busy. And since people can be reached a variety of ways nowadays, they are wary of spam, so be careful of phrases that sound too “salesy” or too self-serving.

Don’t forget about Facebook. Yes, Facebook!

Another good way to gather professional connections is through Facebook.  More and more people are starting to use Facebook groups professionally. To find these groups all you have to do is ask either on your own newsfeed, in a community group, an alumni group, school group, or even neighborhood group. For example, “Hi everyone. Does anyone within this group work in the XYZ space? If so I’d like to connect and pick your brain about something. I work for XYZ company in ABC department.” You can reply to any respondents, connect with them on LinkedIn, and possibly message them to schedule time to chat. Respondents might also refer you to other groups on Facebook that are applicable to your profession. The most active and targeted professional discussions sometimes take place within private Facebook groups.

There is also Twitter!

If you already use Twitter you might consider creating a separate work related handle. Once you do, you can start to follow influencers in your professional niche, leaders you admire, peers at other companies, and news and professional outlets that publish relevant content. It’s a great way to stay updated. If you choose to tweet, share useful professional content and retweet valuable content that you’ve found by following others.

“As professionals, building a network of other talented individuals gives you the support we all too often lack in both our personal and professional lives. It doesn’t matter if you’re looking to move up in your career, or if you’re perfectly happy in your current role. Having a network of other professionals will make your work life richer, more interesting, and may just help you grow your talents.”

– Allen P., Department Head, Editorial & Creative Operations

Set a goal!

Try to make 1-2 new connections a week. Block time on your calendar to do this. Remember, the quality of your network is more important than the size. When you open up tabs in your browser every morning make LinkedIn one of them. Read some updates from your network, conduct a search or two, and send a connection request if you find someone of interest.

Networking isn’t always easy and it doesn’t come naturally for many people. But once you try a few of the suggestions above, and have a few new connections under your belt, you’ll be well on your way to building a great network. We’ll talk about sharing and shaping your story in Part 3 of our series.

For more career tips and advice from Vanguard follow us on LinkedIn and check out our careers blog. If you are interested in learning more about personal marketing and branding check out this Harvard Business Review Article, How to make the right connections when you don’t already have an in by branding expert Dorie Clark.

Our new blog series will help kick start your personal and professional brand on social media. We’ll cover looking your best, growing your network, sharing your story, and staying engaged.

Personal versus professional branding. It’s a blurred line. Any information about you that can be found in a Google search (try it!) or on social media is a part of your brand. Make sure that what you are sending out into the social universe reflects how you want to be perceived. Personal branding is the image you portray and the lasting impression you make.

Speaking of your image, do you look like this on LinkedIn?

Don’t worry, we’ve got you covered below.

Is your LinkedIn profile stale? Maybe you set up your profile when you were job hunting, but haven’t updated it since. LinkedIn offers more than just jobs. It’s a legitimate professional networking site and your image on it is important. It’s also a good starting place to create a professional persona that can carry over onto other channels.

Your story on LinkedIn begins with your profile. Here are five things you can do to start building your brand.

1. Start with a professional headshot and background image/cover photo. Profiles with photos generate 21-times more profile views*. Profiles without both of these images look incomplete. Don’t have easy access to a professional photographer? The new smart phones have great cameras. Grab a friend to help. Avoid wearing white or too much of a pattern, look for good lighting, and pick a plain or pleasant background for your headshot.  For the cover photo/background image, choose something that is personal to you. The most widely used background images are landscapes. Don’t use family photos and make sure the image isn’t stretched or blurry.

2. Include the basics: the location where you are based, the industry in which you work, your education and interests. These essentials are key and should be fairly easy to update.
3. Draft a headline and a personal summary: Your headline can be a more straight forward or fun version of your job title. Your summary is your elevator pitch. If you already have a bio, start there and change it to the 1^st person. Include keywords in both.
4. List your experience over the past 10 years, at least. Describe your major wins or projects, and the value you brought to your team in two or three sentences (updated experiences will get you 8 times more profile views*). This is not a resume with a bullet list, it’s a summary of each role. If this step is overwhelming, start by listing the position titles and add in the details later.
5. Provide work samples: use photos, videos, presentations, blogs, and other media to make your story jump off the page.

*Source: LinkedIn

Once you look good on LinkedIn, take a look at yourself on other social platforms.

• Do you want those channels to be open to the public or private and for personal use only?
• If your Facebook settings are not “friends only” it’s likely that anyone in the world can see your profile and posts. Even if you have it locked down, your profile picture and cover image are still visible to others who search for your name. Be wary of putting anything inappropriate or controversial in those photos.
• The same goes for Instagram and other channels. If they are open to the public then recruiters, colleagues, peers at other companies, and employers can all see that you were out until 2am last night at the bar. That’s not viewed as professional in most workplaces!
• If you participate on multiple channels for professional reasons, make sure your look is consistent and consider using the same profile and cover photos so that you are easily recognized.
• Be careful of comments and content you share on LinkedIn and other channels. If you get into a debate on a public forum it could reflect poorly on your image.

Looking at other people’s profiles is the #1 activity on LinkedIn. Job seekers now behave like consumers, but they trust people more than brands. Job seekers research people currently in roles they are interviewing for and follow leaders at companies they are interested in. When networking, LinkedIn users search for peers at other companies in similar roles to connect with and follow influencers and experts working in their space. People will find you. And on LinkedIn especially, you not only represent yourself, but also your company and your company’s brand, so make sure you represent it well.

“The one thing you can control in today’s war for talent is having a completed LinkedIn profile. Think of your LinkedIn profile as your online business card. It’s the first thing someone will see when they’re researching you about your next potential job, or when you’re recruiting someone to come to work at your company. This is your chance to build your personal brand and be visible to your network. When you have a completed profile you build authenticity and credibility. Brand or be branded.”

– Brian U., Senior Talent Acquisition Consultant

Set a goal!

Work on one section of LinkedIn at a time – sitting down and doing it all at once can be overwhelming. If you schedule 10-20 minutes every day for one week, you’ll have it updated by the weekend!

If you follow through with the tips above, you will look great and be ready for the next step in building your brand on social media– growing your network. We’ll talk about what you can do to build your own community in part two of our series.

For more career tips and advice from Vanguard follow us on LinkedIn and check out our careers blog. If you are interested in this niche of personal marketing and branding check out some great LinkedIn advice from J.T. O’Donnell on the WorkItDaily YouTube channel.