5 Reasons for Freelancers to Use LinkedIn
Many of the freelancers I know stay active on Facebook, Twitter, and Google +, but they ignore one of the most powerful professional networks out there: LinkedIn.
Maybe it’s because they think LinkedIn is for job-seekers. Maybe it’s because they like procrastinating by reading celebrity gossip or watching the viral video du jour on other social networks. Maybe it’s because they don’t know how to leverage their LinkedIn profile to land new clients (believe me, they can and you can too!).
Whatever the reason, freelancers who aren’t on LinkedIn are missing out on opportunities to network, share useful content, and otherwise grow their business. Here are five reasons why you should use it.
1. Connect with Decision-Makers
Earlier this year, LinkedIn passed the 100 million user mark. According to this infographic from Hupspot, 50% of LinkedIn users are decision-makers.
Can’t say that about Twitter or Facebook or probably even Google +. Thousands of creative directors, marketing VPs, IT directors, recruiters, and other potential clients are accessible through LinkedIn. If you have a complete profile that highlights your technical or creative skills, some of them may come to you. You could also use LinkedIn features like InMail or introductions to increase the likelihood that they will respond.
2. Stay Current in Your Industry
Whereas other social networks get flooded with status updates about reality TV or social gaming, LinkedIn focuses on professional interests. You can join groups to trade tips on, say, your favorite WordPress plugins, skim industry-specific headlines on LinkedIn Today, or follow companies that may have a need for your freelance services. All of these features are focused on helping you stay current in an age of constant flux and information overload.
3. Stay in Touch With Colleagues and Clients
By adding colleagues and clients to your LinkedIn network, you can see when they get promoted, score a new client, or share an interesting article. Likewise, they can see when you share a website you worked on, announce a new infoproduct, or speak at a conference. Since LinkedIn is focused on business, you probably wouldn’t be posting photos from a night out on the town, so you don’t have to worry about creating circle or friend lists.
4. Position Yourself as an Expert
When journalists or authors need an expert to comment on a development in a given industry, they sometimes turn to LinkedIn and see who’s been answering questions or who has a connection at a company they’re covering. Recruiters and prospective clients also scout for freelance talent on LinkedIn to avoid sorting through a million responses to a job posting (though some do post in the jobs section). Having a robust presence on LinkedIn can only help you.
5. Drive Traffic to Your Website or Blog
Earlier this summer, TechCrunch reported getting more referral traffic from LinkedIn than Twitter. LinkedIn’s sharing features makes it easy for users to disseminate your content, but you can use services like BlogLink to syndicate your blog to your own LinkedIn profile. It’s also possible to syndicate your Twitter feed, but I don’t necessarily recommend that (you can read why in my new book, details below).
Something is coming…
Tomorrow Rockable Press will be launching a detailed eBook guide on how freelancers can get clients using Linked In. If you’re interested in learning more you can sign up to the Rockin’ List newsletter or join the Rockable Press Linked In group to get a discount coupon for the book.
Icon credit: Some rights reserved by Jeremy Roux.
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Although I am not a freelancer, I can only support the idea of this article. People go to the other social networks for a lot of other motives and not many of them are related to work. So making useful connections might not be that easy there. Sure, they make great promotional tools – but the amount of informational noise is sometime too much.
On the other hand LinkedIn is almost a “pure-breed” professional network ans I have had great experiences with it. The two jobs I had before the current one came after the right people found my LinkedIn profile and contacted me. And the current job I have I found it via a LinkedIn announcement.
It is also very easy to get testimonials or references from other people your worked with. And sometimes the right reference from the right people can be the golden ticket for your next project or job.
“Position Yourself as an Expert”, so tired of hearing this, not everyone is an expert and you never have a right to call yourself one just because you spend time posting somewhere. Being a loud mouth does not make you an expert, sorry internet.
@Jason: Hip-hip, hooray! Thank you for helping to shoot down the Internet Cult of the Expert.
Story from my college days: One of my professors introduced himself in a very halting manner on the first day of class. Why? Because he told us that he was supposed to be an expert in his field of study.
According to others in the same line, he was indeed an expert. But he didn’t go around bragging about it.
If anything, he was very modest about his expertise. The rest of us, expert or not, would do well to follow his example.
^ Kudos to Jason.
In addition it’s a matter of saturation. LinkedIn is saturated with people who are all attempting exactly the same “positioning ourselves as experts” thing.
LinkedIn is absolutely saturated with roving wanna be experts. The best quality questions on LinkedIn discussion groups that are most useful to display your abilities are always a traffic jam.
@Jason: You’re right: simply posting answers on LinkedIn (or other sites) doesn’t make you an expert. But the cream rises to the top as they say, so a well thought-out, strategically placed answer can work to your advantage. For instance, a few months back, I needed to interview a franchising expert for an article I was working on, and I knew I’d found the right person when I read an answer he’d posted on a franchising thread on LinkedIn and saw that he was a mutual connection with a journalist I respect. I sent him an InMail and we set up an interview.
You can also sort by newest questions to ensure that you’re among the first to answer.
I get a handful of traffic from LinkedIn but I get much more from Twitter; but I’m guessing it has a lot to do with your target audience/client base.
I do get lots of recruiters wanting me to work full-time, though.
@Josh: I guess it must be my age, but those recruiters sure aren’t calling on me. But I do notice that when I checked my weekly “who looked at your LI profile” stats, there’s usually at least one headhunter.
But I suppose that once they do a bit of quick mental math (Hmmm, she must be over 50…) they don’t contact me. Because no dumb company wants some been-there done-that fiftysomething questioning everything. Including the color of the cubicle jail cells. Why, such questioning just wouldn’t fit with that “Team Player” paradigm.
@Josh: Even if you have no interest in a full-time, I think there’s still value in hearing from recruiters. I pass those opportunities along to colleagues who are looking for a new position, which both parties appreciate (bonus: sometimes recruiters give referral fees, too). Those same recruiters do get off-site opportunities on occasion (or they can negotiate an off-site arrangement for the right person), so those connections can be worthwhile over the long term.
A contrarian response:
Standing joke in several online communities: do you know how to tell that someone just got fired? Their LinkedIn feed is full of updates to their profile.
I consider LinkedIn yet another one of these social networking things that sounds like it should be much more effective than it really is in practice. At least for freelancers.
The entire vibe of LinkedIn is exactly like an online job fair. It’s completely artificial.
Everyone is posturing to be at their best and absolutely perfect. The discussion groups are filled with oh-so-helpful advice that is offered oh-so-politely, *just in case* any hiring managers are watching.
A while back I read a blog posting by the gal behind the blog “Copylicious” that attested to a huge uptake in LinkedIn InMails that she sent out looking for assignments. She claimed 41% response rate on a batch of InMails. After sending out dozens of carefully targeted InMails I received something like three responses: two were “no interest” and one was a person that indicated interest but whom, Peter Pan like, I could never reach because they absolutely never checked their email and their voice mail was always full.
Truthfully, most InMails I sent out expired unopened.
I have found that even when I send LinkedIn mails to friends to whom I am connected, it is hit or miss whether they will see it within the next month or two. People simply do *not* hang out on LinkedIn for hours like they do on “fun” social networks like Facebook. They go in, update their resume because they themselves are looking, they may read some incoming private messages, and they log out.
The BEST use of LinkedIn is to take advantage of the fact that everyone takes their up-to-date profile deadly seriously: and use it as a way to find executives, managers and employees within companies that you’d like to do business with. It’s a really good, accurate and up to date directory of business people.
Taking the reputation scores and community message boards of LinkedIn seriously is a mistake, IMO. Get in, get off, and use its information in the real world.
I’ve struggled with this one for a while. I guess having issues finding my voice on LinkedIn. I’ve looked at some discussions, but often feel inundated with webinar and article pimping that discourages me from really getting involved. Maybe I’m not wrapping my head around it the right way.
Amazing article.
I used to understimate LinkedIn importance. I need to change my opinion on it!