If you’re considering monetizing your LinkedIn presence, I outline a few effective ways to manage the process, for freelancers and consultants.
Establish your reputation using LinkedIn
As a freelancer or consultant, it can be difficult to build your reputation, as you can only rely on yourself, your work, and your expertise. Building a professional reputation hinged on your own name, rather than an employer’s, is an essential strategic move for those of who are self-employed. LinkedIn offers you excellent opportunities to build your professional reputation, and monetize your presence too. It may seem odd to think of, but it is possible to use your LinkedIn presence to generate an income. I’ll take you through a few ways it’s possible below.
LinkedIn for freelancers and consultants
The statistics speak for themselves: 80% of B2B leads that emanate from social media are from LinkedIn. There’s no denying that LinkedIn is highly effective for freelancers and consultants, and an absolute essential for B2B marketing. As you work to build your customer base, using LinkedIn effectively should take priority in your marketing efforts. Before you can monetize your LinkedIn presence, however, you need to establish yourself on the platform as best as you possibly can.
How to leverage LinkedIn for your benefit
Here are some of the best ways to use LinkedIn to establish your professional reputation:
- Use the targeted networking tools: LinkedIn empowers you to target your networking in specific ways, drilling down to niche, industry, sector, and more. Make sure you use LinkedIn’s targeted networking tools to your advantage. Use these to build your network and establish robust relationships with potential clients and collaborators.
- Showcase your expertise: LinkedIn is the perfect online space to showcase your expertise. Use LinkedIn to reflect on your client experiences, successes, and ask insightful questions related to your industry and sector. Make a consistent effort to demonstrate your knowledge, and establish yourself as a thought leader.
- Build your credibility: LinkedIn’s recommendations function is a fabulous way to collect client testimonials. Make it a habit to ask clients or collaborators to share a recommendation of you, and provide one in return. Don’t forget to list your qualifications and keep them updated. Big tip: Yes, even that short online course you did counts. Undertaking short courses and obtaining online qualifications is a great way to build your knowledge base and demonstrate your professional proficiency. Even free courses hold weight. Never stop learning! And then, make sure you list your qualifications on your LinkedIn profile. A well-crafted profile that’s up to date is the cornerstone of establishing your professional reputation.
- Optimise your LinkedIn profile: Make sure your LinkedIn profile has a compelling headline, and that you include highly relevant keywords throughout your profile and posts.
Monetize your LinkedIn profile as a consultant or freelancer
As a consultant or freelancer, it is possible to monetize your LinkedIn profile, once you’re well into your journey of cultivating your professional reputation. Be sure not to jump into this too soon. Once you’re confident and comfortable with your LinkedIn presence and activity, you can start considering moves towards monetization. Here are six ways I recommend you can begin to monetize your your LinkedIn profile:
- Publish industry-specific content: Make an effort to create original content that responds to industry-specific problems. Create content that resonates with your target audience. Did you read a great report? Turn your insights into an infographic. Create a quick video reflecting on the statistics. Showcase your relevant experience by creating a client case study that reflects an interesting point in the report.
- Offer free consultations: I’m not saying you should do free work, but it can be beneficial to “give away” some of your time and expertise, to build towards monetizing your LinkedIn profile. Consider offering a limited number of free, quick consultations to showcase your expertise. Create these quick-fire consultation sessions for people to tap into your knowledge. This can be a great way to attract potential clients.
- Upgrade to LinkedIn Premium: A free LinkedIn account is great, but a LinkedIn Premium account offers you so many more opportunities to monetize your profile. These include high-level analytics, targeting, and search filters. LinkedIn Premium features help you create far more targeted lead generation strategies to attract more clients.
- Track your results: Use LinkedIn’s suite of analytical tools to monitor your content’s performance, lead generation efforts, and targeting strategies. Regular monitoring will reveal excellent insights into the type of content your target audience resonates the most with. This enables you to re-engineer your strategies, stay agile, and ahead of the curve.
- Network offline: Leap off LinkedIn and leverage in-person networking. Getting the balance right between online and offline networking is key to building your reputation.
Now that you’re ready to start monetizing your LinkedIn profile, remember to stay consistent, professional, and focus on the value you can bring to potential clients. Good luck as you move into this next phase of your LinkedIn profile evolution.
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