Improving the Readability of Your Posts

If more people read what you post on LinkedIn you will improve you chances of finding opportunity.

Here is a very simple thing you can do to get more of what you write read by others in you profile or the Question and Answer forum.

The secret is to keep your sentences short 10-12 words and keep your paragraphs short – less than 7 sentences. Large blocks of text look intimidating and are in fact harder to read. By breaking your thought up into short paragraphs you will increase others willingness to read what you’ve written.

I highly recommend Blake and Bly’s book “Elements of Copywriting” to anyone who uses LinkedIn actively. The techniques in this book and suggested above will help with all of your marketing, self-promotion, and sales copy.

A LinkedIn Sphere of Influence You May Have Overlooked

As a networker you know that the key to networking is visibility. The more visible you become the better your chances of running into opportunity.

The question is how do you raise your visibility on LinkedIn? Answer this question and you’ll likely find more opportunities. Logical right?

One of the ways you can increase your visibility on LinkedIn is through connections to “spheres of influence” (SOI). These are people to whom others are already connected in some way (no necessarily a LinkedIn connection).

On LinkedIn the advantage of being connected to one of these SOIs if they participate in your questions you get visibility to their network as the answering of a question is posted to the updates on their connections homepages.

So who is this sphere of influence you missed? It is the person(s) you’ll find at the experts list after clicking on the Answer Questions link under “Answers” at the top of your LinkedIn window. The window will be titled “This Weeks Experts.”

There are two big advantages to being connected to these top people. First of all just the direct visibility and exposure you get when they participate in one of your questions or you in theirs. Second, these are the people that like to answer questions. If you create good questions they will usually jump in and when you get lots of people in your questions others notice and want to add their two cents.

This prolific group of people represents a great way to increase your visibility and exposure on LinkedIn. You will benefit from finding ways to connect with them.

For a free report that discusses strategies related to  spheres of influence, get my free LinkedIn Networking Success kit and see report #4 called “Working a Room at a Live Event .” This report discusses some ways to find spheres of influence at live events and then tells you how to use that strategy on Linkedin.  Get the report free at: http://www.OnlineBusinessNetworker.net/successkit .

Using Signatures in the Question & Answer Forum

This discussion is in response to my recent engagements in the Question & Answer Forum on LinkedIn.

I wanted to chat for a minute about a subject I feel is quite important. That is the use of signatures and links when you respond to questions.

To start I would like to say that anything you add to your response to someone’s question that is not relevant is inappropriate. Links to websites that don’t address the question at hand and self promoting signatures are simply advertisements at the expense of someone else’s discussion. I believe that LinkedIn policy actually covers these items and says not to do them.

However, that aside, let me tell you the very simple reasons you should always refrain from adding anything to your question that is not directly relevant.

1. It’s not necessary. When you answer a question your mini profile is displayed right next to your answer so anyone who wishes can easily track you down. Of course you must make sure that if they get to your profile they can find your contact information if they want it.
2. In angers or irritates some. This is actually the most compelling reason for not participating in these activities. Your goal in networking is to eventually profit by receiving business from your activities. Why in heavens name would you wish to aggravate anyone on the system — they could be a prospect or a connection to one. In my opinion this is a totally destructive action. No one will complain if you don’t put your website link or fancy signature with your answer. But they may be irritated if you do.
3. It really doesn’t work. I have found much better results on LinkedIn when you maintain a complete public image as a valuable resource and never taint that with displays of prospecting or activities that might be seen in that light.

I hope this information has been useful. I look forward to seeing you in the Q&A forum.