Sue Koch is the chief navigator for Soaring Solutions, LLC.
Every week, we ask a real estate professional for their Short List, a collection of tips and recommendations on an essential topic in real estate. This week, we talked with Sue Koch, the chief navigator for Soaring Solutions, LLC, for her top three new features on LinkedIn.
If you are active on even just one social channel, you may feel like something moves or changes with every log-in. This Short List provides tips on a few of the newest features on LinkedIn, and how you can take advantage of those features today.
These tips seek to motivate you to be more active and keep a pulse on your profile, so you are in the fore-mind of your network.
1. Metrics to Move your Competitive Spirit – LinkedIn has added some new statistics to their analytics section. If you have a bit of a competitive nature, you may be inspired to connect and post more when you find out that you only rank at 75 percent of all your connections. You can also find out who of your connections has the most visited profiles, so you can see the competition – and what they are doing on LinkedIn to rank so high.
Check it out by clicking to the bottom right of your home page, which will show you this display:
2. Publish Your Blog – You may have received a message from LinkedIn saying “You’ve been invited to publish on LinkedIn.” If you have, do it! Previously only available to selected influencers, LinkedIn has opened this up to 25,000 members and growing. This is a great way to get your content seen and shared by your network. You may find this a good alternative to a website blog if you haven’t built one, or don’t have much traffic there yet.
Not sure if you’ve been invited? Look for this little pencil in the status update post box. If you see that, click to publish your blog.
If you have not yet been invited, you can get on the wait-list here, and plan your insightful topics while you wait. http://specialedition.linkedin.com/publishing/
3. Feature Your Brand – If you have a LinkedIn Premium account, you now have the opportunity to feature a branded image at the header of your profile. I know LinkedIn purists hate to hear this, but it looks a bit like the Facebook cover image. This is a great opportunity to showcase your brand along with that professional headshot I know all of you already have on your LinkedIn profile.
Here’s what it looks like:
If you have the premium version, you’ll simply go to “edit profile” and you’ll see an option to add your own image, or choose one of LinkedIn’s templates in the meantime. Don’t worry if you don’t have the premium version of LinkedIn; you still have the opportunity to add branded images in the media portfolio within the summary and experience sections.
You can start looking at your stats today to inspire more activity. If you are not yet ready to publish, get on that wait-list today, and make sure to do status updates consistently in the meantime to up your rank amongst your network. Remember, the more fore of mind you are to your network, the more referrals you are likely to receive!
Sue Koch is the chief navigator for Soaring Solutions, LLC. With 17 years experience in corporate/consulting work, Koch has worked with start-up tech companies, global corporations and mom ‘n pop shops. An AFAA certified group fitness instructor, published author and Certified Professional Coach, Koch was also featured in the 2012 Edition of the CRAVE guide, “Crave Chicago the Urban Girl’s Manifesto 2nd Ed.”