One of the most common misconceptions about LinkedIn is that you need to spend a lot of time on it before it becomes useful. Contrary to that notion, I’ve found that spending as little as 15 minutes once or twice a week is enough for most people.

 

Five Quick Things to at Least Once a Week

• Review your pending invites and either accept or ignore them. A possible client or referral source could be inviting you to connect. If you aren’t sure if you want to connect with someone, click on Manage All. Then click on Message and send them a short note asking why they reached out to you.
• Respond to your messages. A good share of my business is the result of someone sending me a LinkedIn message. People may lose your email address or your phone number. But if the two of you are connected on LinkedIn, they can always reach you there. However, that is only useful if you check and answer your messages.
• Scroll through your notifications. If you see that a client or referral partner has a work anniversary, send a quick message of congratulations. Use notifications to check for job changes as well. Maybe a connection is now working at a company you want to do business with and can open a door for you.
• Share some information of interest via a short post. Examples include information about a trend in your industry or a “how to” tip. You can also reference an article by someone else (be sure to include a link to it).  Another idea is to write a post honoring the work of a client or referral partner.
• Skim through the activities of a few of your closest clients and referral partners for things to share. Be sure to mention original poster by using the @ symbol followed by their name to notify them that you have shared their post.

 One more suggestion relates to sending LinkedIn invites to selected folks you meet when you are doing business networking. This activity is sporadic rather than something I suggest doing once or twice a week.

My recommendation is to send the invites within a week after you meet the person. Always write a personalized note when you send the invite and reference where you met them. If you wait too long to send an invite, you might not remember enough about the encounter.

 

How About You?

What LinkedIn activities do you find the most beneficial? How much time do you spend on LinkedIn each week doing those activities?

 

About Joyce

Joyce Feustel helps people, especially those ages 45 and older, to become more effective and productive using social media, especially Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter.

She works with business owners, business development professionals, business consultants, job seekers, and more – ranging from entrepreneurs to people in large corporations. Find her at www.boomerssocialmediatutor.com.