LinkedIn – from a business platform to an interactive social business network
The business platform LinkedIn is currently developing fast. Social Media expert Sarah Emmerich gives practical insights how to use the network successfully
An entry by Tabea Fürnsinn & Joelle Wörtche
Thursday, November 26, 2020
Media, Technology and Society
“I always say: you have to build a network while you don’t need it and not only when you immediately need it” – Sarah Emmerich
LinkedIn is considered the most successful international business network. It currently has 14 million members in the DACH region – and the trend is rising, as more and more companies are moving internationally due to globalization and digitization. The number of users is getting closer and closer to the business platform XING, which is currently still the most frequently used in the German-speaking area. Compared to XING, LinkedIn is therefore rapidly gaining importance in the German-speaking area.
If you look at the development of LinkedIn over the last one or two years, not only is the number of users growing, but you can also see that the network itself is evolving rapidly with the functions and the basic features: LinkedIn as a platform has become more interactive and personal. It can be seen a development from a pure business platform, with the main goal to present yourself professionally through your CV as a business card, to a more personal, interactive social network, as we know it from the other big platforms.
This transformation has an impact on the importance and handling of the network for users, for us as future experts in the media industry, for employees or even employers and companies. To dive deeper into the broad and exciting field of this current upswing of LinkedIn, we got the opportunity to talk with LinkedIn expert Sarah Emmerich. Sarah Emmerich is specialized in Social Media and Influencer Marketing and works as a freelance consultant in this field. In this context she deals strongly with the platform LinkedIn, advising and coaching companies in this area. She is also active on LinkedIn herself and shares insights from the field of Online Marketing with a focus on Social Media, Influencer Marketing and Generation Y and Z. Sarah Emmerich explains: ‚LinkedIn has grown very strongly this year, there were hardly any networking opportunities in the offline world‘.
Built up and maintain your network before you need it
Sarah Emmerich, Social Media and Influencer Manager, got us insights on how to use LinkedIn successfully and to stay on track. Sarah is active on LinkedIn on a daily basis, knows all the important functions and guided us through LinkedIn in a digital meeting. ‘LinkedIn has the timeline, so I see contributions from people. I have the newsfeed where I see news. These are the most important points for me. And that I produce content and share content: Videos, pictures, contributions, texts. This creates discussions about my contributions completely detached from a job search’
We asked her how to get started with a personal profile, what the key factors are and what we need to keep in mind while being active on LinkedIn.
If you work your way from top to bottom, you start with a profile picture. This should be authentic and likeable, looking into the camera. Not too strict or overly professional. A tip from Sarah: Authenticity over usual rules! The point here is to show who you are and how you want to be perceived, so you become more tangible and interesting, and that’s what it’s all about. Continue with the cover picture. This should represent your work and interests by showing pictures of you at work. Here you are also welcome to work with text to underline your profile.
Then follows the profile slogan. This will be displayed with your profile picture and should be short and concise. The slogan should arouse interest and draw companies or private profiles to your site.
Once on your site, people are interested in your info description. Here not the length but the content is important. Who are you? What are you doing? And where do you want to go? Take as many lines as you need, write something about your activities and your qualifications so that visitors of your site can get a good overview of you.
Thereunder you fill in your curriculum vitae with your professional experience. Additional qualifications, honorary office, special language skills and everything else you can show. Tip from Sarah: If you like, you can write a continuous text about your individual stages in which you can go into more detail about your specific tasks.
If you have made it this far, you can mark your current job as focus from your resume. This activity will then be displayed at the top of your profile next to your profile slogan. Tip from Sarah: if you are currently looking for a job, you can write this out in your profile slogan.
Why is LinkedIn more than just a digital business card?
When your profile is complete, you can use it to represent yourself and your work. Now you can start networking. ‚It’s much more than just a job search, LinkedIn is very interested in creating content, sharing experiences and knowledge‘ Sarah explains. First of all, you should network with your immediate environment, including fellow students, lecturers, friends and work colleagues. Then network with people from your industry, with potential employers when you are looking for a job. But you can also benefit from LinkedIn independently of finding a job as an active user. Through LinkedIn’s own newsfeed, you can find many exciting articles that you can comment on and share. You can also write your own posts on topics that are related to your job. Tip from Sarah: Think about what you comment and like, because your activities will be displayed in your profile. Sarah reports: ‘LinkedIn is my number one platform to stay up to date. About world events and about news, because LinkedIn has its own newsfeed. I don’t get that from Instagram for example‘.
Once you have built up a network, Sarah introduced us to two more exciting features that you should definitely use. You can set up the function confirm knowledge under your CV. You can ask for feedback from colleagues or fellow students. You also have the possibility to get recommendations. Have you successfully mastered a job and your boss is happy with your performance? Then ask them to write a recommendation for you. An honest, positive feedback that reflects your performance. Especially for potential employers who visit your profile these two functions are very interesting and reveal a lot about you.
Where is the border between private and business?
As LinkedIn also implements more and more features of the classic large social networks, we asked ourselves how to keep the line between private content and business.
Sarah is of the opinion that you can also share something private. However, she still tries to share mainly professional content, because at LinkedIn you should always try to find a business connection.
‚Very important is the question: what is my goal, where do I want to go, what do I want to achieve – do you want to find a job, or do you want to be self-employed and therefore network and exchange with people from your industry? Delivering added value – you need to know what your goal is with LinkedIn and then you can decide: how I want to appear, what I want to do, how professional it has to be, how personal it can be. Many of my followers are also interested in Sarah as a businesswoman, which means that a personal interest also plays a role – me as a person’
As a conclusion, we have summarized the most important things that we took from the talk with Sarah and will implement in our profiles:
- Start by creating your profile
- Maintain your profile, build a network, be present
- Get involved, be active and use the many possibilities and features
- As Social Media platforms resemble each other more and more, always think of the professional connection while being active on LinkedIn
So lets get it started and connect with Sarah Emmerich on LinkedIn