“I often get into a discussion about LinkedIn being social media and I am saying no. The main reason is that social media uses followers and views as metrics, you always hear people talking about these things, but in the LinkedIn world it is different. ” – Tony K Silver is a LinkedIn profiler and educator who can show you how to use LinkedIn as a tool to achieve your desired outcome, and ROI if you are a business.
Tony K Silver
Actually, a view on LinkedIn is not actually true. They may have changed the wording to impressions but with either name they do not count in the algorithm. Also, your post could be in someone’s feed, and they are scrolling through, and it is on their screen for less than a second and it scores a view!! They have not viewed it let alone had a chance to read it!!
I see LinkedIn as what it has been for many years and that is a Personal Professional platform with an element of social about it. In fact, over the last few years Microsoft, who own LinkedIn, have tried to make it more social media, but ultimately that has failed, and you will see changes on LinkedIn around Knowledge and Interests. They will play down Click Bait posts and similar attention seeking posts and will prioritise posts that offer knowledge and information.
The reason I can say this, my credibility, is that I have been using the platform since 2008 and was trained in 2009. I formed my LinkedIn training company in 2018 and have won multiple awards since as well as being ranked in the LinkedIn search engine in the top 10 over the last 5 years. I have trained people from Solopreneurs to global banks and have near on 300 recommendations on LinkedIn.
Do you need to be on LinkedIn?
This also helps me answer the second question that I set about should you be on LinkedIn. Firstly, as I type this article in late August 2023 there are 943 million people on LinkedIn with 34.3 million accounts in the UK. That alone gives you an idea of the size of the platform, it also grows by three per second worldwide.
So, back to the question and the easiest answer is based around where does your ideal client hang out? If they are B2C it could be either Facebook or social media, but if they are in the B2B space then I suggest that a very high percentage are indeed on LinkedIn. I also think that if they are a business owner or employed at management level and above then they are on LinkedIn.
So VA, PA, EA will highly likely be working with and looking to be working with Business owners and professional people, so that makes LinkedIn a good place to find work, but also the people you work with are also highly likely to be using LinkedIn and may indeed need help.
That means there are good reasons for you to be on the platform, it is where you need to be to do and find work for many of the people that use your services. I have had VA’s work for me and will do again. I find their experience and skill sets invaluable, especially if they are a specialist on certain things (CRM and email marketing in my case).
Be a specialist
In fact, that is a good tip, be a specialist. I know it is very tempting to be all things to all people and indeed you may work with different clients on different things, but on LinkedIn people search for specialists. So set up your profile to emphasise this, but in the about section do list all the items you can help with.
I have seen a massive growth in VA’s in both my LinkedIn and Networking activities so you need to stand out as you could be up against a lot of people. For instance, I have just done a simple search for “VA” in the UK on LinkedIn and the search result number was 6,500 and if I used “Virtual Assistant” that returns 29,000. Just adding CRM to that search reduced it from 29,00 to 2,700, so you see that choosing the keywords that you use can help you greatly.
So be a specialist it will help you and the best way you can show this is in what we call your Top Card. This consists of your Banner, Head Shot and Headline.
With people’s, attention spans reducing, we now have around 5-10 seconds to grab the viewers attention. So, your Top Card must affirm to the viewer that they are in the right place. This means adding an image on your banner that alludes to what you do, and add those specialist skills as well so the viewer sees what you can help them with.
Ensure you headshot is a headshot not torso or full length and that it is recent. Then in your headline (220 characters) again tell them what you do and some credibility that will be attractive to them.
So, to summarise, yes LinkedIn is somewhere you should be and you should be using it to help yourself as well as your clients.
If you are looking for a new PA or EA job you can see the latest vacancies by SecsintheCity right here in PA Life.
