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Commit to the work, reap the rewards using LinkedIn – 2020

Using LinkedIn requires a commitment to regular activities. Yes, this requires an investment of time. It does not however have to overwhelm you.

The best way to get meaningful value from your use of LinkedIn is to commit time every day using this business tool.

Years ago I developed an activity template to help me pay attention to what I should do on a regular basis. I based this activity on approximately 15 minutes per day.

If you were to invest 15 minutes a day using LinkedIn as a business tool, could you create enough value to justify the cost?

I have proven for myself that the value is significantly greater than the cost, for me. 

However, I know that a big part of this ROI is that I invested time to become efficient using LinkedIn. I had to practice the activities to be able to execute them in the least amount of time possible.

This practice, although an upfront investment, will pay off in the long term use of LinkedIn. Don’t forego this activity.

The activity template I developed may not match exactly with what you want to do, based on your goals using LinkedIn as a business tool. 

However, the template is a good example of something you may want to work from.

I have also updated this template based on the current version of LinkedIn  Here is my 2020 LinkedIn Investment Template:

LinkedIn Investment Guidance

(Adjust as you need for your own purpose & goals)

Monday (15 Minutes)

  • Review your Feed – Don’t spend too much time here, however look at your network’s activity, paying close attention to content from or about your target audience.
  • Comment on posts that are relevant to who you are and what you do. Strive to Comment rather than Like.
  • Share posts that are clearly relevant to who you are and what you do. Always tell your network why you are sharing the content.
  • Review new LinkedIn Invites from your My Network page. Accept relevant invites and Message or Call them back and thank them for the connection.

Tuesday (15 Minutes)

  • Review new content from #Hashtags or Companies you are following.
  • Comment on relevant discussions.
  • Share a simple post that may elicit an engaging conversation from your LinkedIn Network. Make sure the post is relevant to your target audience, and not about you or your business.
  • Say hello to a few LinkedIn Members that may be relevant to what you do or who have shared new content. Use LinkedIn Messaging or better yet phone or email.
  • Review your Notifications for content and/or actions of interest/relevance to you.

Wednesday (15 Minutes)

  • Request a focused recommendation from someone you did work with.
  • Share a Celebratory or Kudos Post about a LinkedIn Member who you engaged with last week and appreciate.
  • Share a link to a book or other website articles that you enjoyed and/or benefited from. Tell you network why.
  • Review the Who Has Viewed your Profile Page to see if anyone relevant to your business/career showed up. Consider sending them an invite.

Thursday (15 Minutes)

  • Give a trusted LinkedIn Member a Recommendation. Make sure it’s meaningful and relevant.
  • Use LinkedIn Search to find other LinkedIn Members who are of interest and relevant to you. Send an invite with a personal note.
  • Invite your target audience or their influencers to a coffee or lunch meeting. Be specific and focused, don’t look for your friends, rather, look for new potential clients and/or business partners.
  • Send private messages to direct contacts and group contacts and engage in relevant conversations. Make the conversation all about them until they give you permission to make it about yourself or your business.
  • Introduce your target audience and their influencers to others on LinkedIn – This is a powerful give feature. (FYI – I routinely include their LinkedIn Public Profile URLs in my emails to my contacts when introducing them to other contacts who are on LinkedIn.)

Friday (15 Minutes)

  • Peruse New Connections and reach out to those you have not said hello to yet.
  • Check out competitor LinkedIn Company Pages and Individual Profiles.
  • Learn something new about your target audience and influencers.
  • Build a list of companies, industries, markets, etc for your Monday research.
  • Read a few of my LinkedIn articles.
  • Write a new LinkedIn article of your own, focused on your target audience, and relevant to you & your business.

If you want even more help using LinkedIn as a business tool, consider joining our
Private LinkedIn Support/Training/Coaching Group