Everyone says they want a better career. But who does anything about it? Who has the time? But I want you to know that it doesn’t take long. In fact, with only 5 minutes each day, you can make a big difference in your career.
Be sure to share this post with a friend so that they can build their career as easily as you build yours.
This post is a logical successor to A LinkedIn Profile That Gets You Noticed. Using LinkedIn in this way helps your connections and helps you, too.
Start by opening linkedin.com in your browser. How long did that take?
Notifications
Every day LinkedIn publishes job changes, birthdays and other events for all your connections. Start your day by making someone else’s. Click the Notifications Icon. It is probably already displaying a red circle with a number in it. That tells you how many notifications are waiting for you.
When you click the Notifications Icon, a list of notifications will display. Pick one. It doesn’t matter which one. No matter what the announcement is, click it and send a message to that connection. The message can be very brief. Sometimes LinkedIn helps a little by filling in a short message, such as “Congrats!” for a job change notification.
You can send only that if you want. But it is so easy to customize this message. Add the person’s name or mention something you both discussed another time or wish them well or mention their previous position. There are so many ways to customize that are so easy.
The best part is that when you take the time to customize your message, they might respond with a short message back to you. So pay it forward by messaging a notification.
How long did that take, 30 seconds?
Endorsements
Your LinkedIn Profile has a section called “Featured Skills & Endorsements”. This section allows your connections to acknowledge skills that you have. There are no criteria for endorsing someone, and LinkedIn does not seem to police this feature in any meaningful way. So why not endorse someone? Click on someone in your feed, maybe the person you already messaged, and their profile will display. Scroll down to the Featured Skills & Endorsements section and click on a skill.
Endorsements look great, especially if you get over 99 people to endorse you for a particular skill. LinkedIn displays “99+” when you have more than 99 endorsements for a particular skill, and that “99+” looks great. So you do your connections a favor when you endorse them.
I suggest endorsing strategically. By that, I mean that you should always endorse someone for the skill having the highest number of endorsements. That way your endorsement moves them closer to that magical “99+”. Since the endorsement count does not change above 99, you should never endorse anyone for a skill which already shows “99+”. That would somewhat waste your endorsement because no one would notice the change. You also cannot endorse any skill more than once.
There is more good news here, too. When you endorse someone, many times they will endorse you, too. Not everyone will. But it is quite common that people will pay you back for an endorsement by endorsing you, too. Payment in kind, I guess. So endorsing is another positive way to pay it forward.
Total time so far? Maybe a minute and a half or less, right?
Like
This has got to be the easiest item on my list. Scan through your LinkedIn feed. Pick an update from you of your connections. It is best if the update is interesting to you. But that isn’t actually a critical requirement. Pick an update, and click the “Like” icon. Done!
So far, that’s 3 steps in less than 2 minutes. We might make it.
Share
When you share an article or a post it will appear in the feed of all your connections. So sharing is a favor you do not only for your connections but for the original poster. Your connections will get to see something you thought was interesting, something they might not have seen unless they also are connected to the original poster. The original poster gets exposed to a new, larger audience or your connections. So this is a great way to spread the love.
Time elapsed, less than 3 minutes.
Update
LinkedIn’s update is a simple way for you to message all your connections at once. There are all kinds of short messages you could pass along. Maybe the completion of a major activity, or a big milestone in a project, or even an announcement from your company, possibly by linking to a company press release or something similar. The point is it is an easy way to put your name in front of a large audience.
The point is it is an easy way to put your name in front of a large audience.
Time elapsed, less than 5 minutes for sure.
Conclusion
So there you have it. You just engaged with your audience in five meaningful ways and did favors for many of your connections at the same time. It took less than 5 minutes. Surely you have 5 minutes to do this every day? Give it a try, see what happens. And if you do have more time, you can repeat these boosters and do even more.
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