Linked In: Only 15 minutes a week.
By Mike Ferretti
You likely spent more than 15 minutes this morning getting your coffee, In that same amount of time you could be keeping up all that hard work you spent building your brand.
Spend your time as follows.
6 Minutes: Engage
This may be the hardest part but but it is easy with LinkedIn. A little share, Like a contacts post, Comment on their stuff or Endorse their skills. Each little interaction helps your brand stay in front of your contacts. To get the most out of this, work out a list of about 20 people you want to stay in front of. Then start clicking two or three each week. You will look like a networking pro and will find that your contacts respond in kind.
5 Minute: Profile Check/Update
Size up your profile and address easy to fix items like typos, dead links, contact info and scribble out some notes for anything you find that will take a while that you can do when you do have a few more minutes to spend on your brand and social self. Think about your current branding - is it still sending the right message. If your looking for a job is that clear yet subtle? If you are looking for new clients, do you spell that out?
Look at your call to action(CTA) You know the little blurb, infographic or picture that tells profile visitors how, why and where to get in touch with you. Make sure it is in your Advice for contacting section but you might also include it right up in your summary.
Here is an example that I have seen
"I value any opportunity to act as a career mentor or chat with other professionals in the venture capital world. Feel free to connect with me here or on Twitter @[yourhandle]."
Your CTA can be very simple but if it is outdated then it is useless. While I am thinking about it...Are you inviting the right kind of people and are you inviting them to a platform where they can actually engage with you? Also make sure you are aligned with your current career goals or you could be wasting your precious branding and profile engaging with the wrong people at the wrong time.
2 Minutes: Share
Next quickly scan your feed for the most interesting article you can find. You know something that is related to your area of expertise and the kind of thing your network will love. Share the article with a short comment on why you think it's useful. Now you rprofile is in good shape and you have activated your presence with content.
2 Minutes: Pair Down your connections
No don't grandstand with a facebook style purge. You just want to make sure that your connections are high quality and part of your brand. Sure quantity is OK but really you want quality connections to help you reach your goals.
Quickly scroll through your connections looking for people you simply don't remember any more or haven't actually had a real conversation with. Make sure you don't click on their profiles and pay them a visit, you don't want to draw attention to your paring down session. Work from your connections tab and here is link on how
That is it! 15 minutes will keep you going until you can spend more time on bigger updates. It will keep your social self and personal branding on autopilot and your network thinking you are a social ninja.
