LinkedIn Ready In 2024

At the end of last year, I ran a LoveIn special to look back at LinkedIn in 2023, what’s changed and what’s not changed to help us prepare for 2024.

Last year LinkedIn celebrated 20 years since it was first launched into the world and I celebrated by 10th year as an independent LinkedIn trainer.

And although in all that time there has been massive changes, I still think there are some things about LinkedIn that hasn’t changed that can continue to stand us in good stead in 2024.

Watch here or read on for the highlights!

What Hasn’t Changed?

📌 It’s the closest thing to face to face Networking you can get

LinkedIn is still the #1 online networking platform. There’s now over 35 million people on LinkedIn in the UK and a billion worldwide and LinkedIn gives us a number of ways that we can drill down and find the people that we want to meet, build relationships and turn them into opportunities, whether that’s a new client a collaboration or a speaking opportunity.

LinkedIn has become such a big part of our professional and business lives.

Just that the fact that it’s now the de facto thing to do when we’re out networking is to connect on LinkedIn.

And thanks to the QR Code on the LinkedIn mobile app we can scan another person’s QR code to bring their LinkedIn profile up on the app where we can go and connect with them.

Could LinkedIn be the new business card then? 🤔

I do know a few people who say yes. They no longer have business cards and just use LinkedIn. Personally, I still like a business card, but you never know that may change at some point!

One reason is the challenge when connecting via the LinkedIn mobile app to personalise the connection request. It is possible to do but like many things on LinkedIn it’s pretty hidden!

Currently to send a personalised connection request via the mobile app, you have to click on the three dots that appear to the right of the connect button, and from the drop down window that opens select ‘personalised invite’.

The good news is that they are talking about changing this soon to make it easier to do – fingers crossed 🤞

Where to Find QR Codes

Currently, you find your QR Code in the Search Bar at the top of the LinkedIn mobile app. Click on the search bar and it brings up QR icon which if you click on takes you to your QR Code, giving you the opportunity to either scan someone else’s QR code or let them scan yours.

However, the QR Code maybe moving!

Instead of being found via the Search bar, you will see a blue circle with a PLUS (+) sign in it, at the bottom right of the app window. Click on this and you will find your QR Code.  It’s not yet on my LinkedIn Mobile app (I do check to make sure the app is up to date) so you may have to check both places.

📌 LinkedIn is a website

For me the other thing that hasn’t changed is the fact that LinkedIn is a website. An another online presence that gets you found on Google that is free to host, the SEO is done for you and you  can change it in an instant. If nothing else, so for me it’s like why not take advantage of the great benefit that

Thinking of LinkedIn as a website is often a light bulb moment because we know what websites are, and how they work.

We optimise websites so they come up high in a google search for relevant keywords. Which means we need to do the same for our LinkedIn Profile.

You want to add your top 5 keywords throughout your LinkedIn profile including:

• The headline
• About section
• Job title & experience section
• Skills section

LinkedIn has also added the ‘Top Skills’ feature at the bottom of the About Section. Plus, we can list key skills under each experience/job role on our profiles.

So think carefully about what you want to be found for. Do you know what your best performing keywords are? If you do add them to your profile.

And, give your profile a little love. Take the time to review it. Does it say what you want it to say? Does it speak to your audience, and will it get you found on Google?

📌 It’s the #1 platform for generating leads

The other thing that I don’t think has change about LinkedIn is that it’s great for lead generation.

And the reason I say that is because . . .

a) LinkedIn is working 24/7 in the background supporting all your other marketing activities especially networking so it’s facilitating all those lovely word of mouth recommendations that many business owners are looking for.

b) Secondly, it’s the only social media platform that allows you build relationships with people you don’t know and grow them into opportunities. It’s all about building relationships with people so they know who you are and actively want to talk to you, which effectively what networking is about.

What Has Changed?

So what about changes then on LinkedIn that will help us in 2024?

🔆LinkedIn Premium – should you pay for LinkedIn?

The age old question of whether you should pay for LinkedIn or not. Generally, I always say no it’s not worth paying for LinkedIn because there is so much you can do on the free version.

But I think LinkedIn has been listening and thinking how can they make it a more attractive proposition by adding some new features, such as a new custom button which gives people the option to visit your website or book an appointment or view their portfolio.

The button is visible when you’re posting, or if you come up in a search. So anyone can click off LinkedIn and onto your website.

It seems strange to me because we are taking people OFF LinkedIn.

People are on LinkedIn for a reason and we are encouraging them away from LinkedIn, which means they may then not come back to your post or profile.

For me, the thing about LinkedIn is that you can see who’s looked at your profile, who has engaged on your posts and people can quickly connect with you.

So if you taking people OFF LinkedIn, you need to be really clear on where you are sending them.

If you then send people to your website, most people send them to the home page of their website. Where basically you could lose them. If they don’t take any action you have no idea who they are.

Think about where you want to send potential customers – your customer journey.

This is an opportunity to send people to some form of landing page. Somewhere they can take some form of action and you can capture their name and email. For example, mine goes to my free ebook

Other links of course can be a LinkTree, or a Calendly link for people to book a call.

Then there is the ‘Carrot and The Stick’ approach to encouraging you to upgrade your LinkedIn!

LinkedIn appears to be limiting the number of personalised connections you can send to 20 a month on the free version of LinkedIn. You can send more connections just not personalised ones.

🔆Creator Mode – should you turn it on or not? 🔆

Creator Mode is not a new feature. It was actually introduced back in 2021 with the aim of giving content creators more visibility.

But it’s a question I get asked a lot – to turn it on or not turn it on.

The simple answer is YES if you regularly post on LinkedIn. NO, if you use LinkedIn more as a networking tool.

LinkedIn’s aim is to be the destination for inspiring content, and it wants us as its members, to create that content so that people stay on the platform.

As such, it gives us tools such as LinkedIn Live or LinkedIn Newsletters (like this one) to help us.

BUT . . . Just  Because LinkedIn says you should do something doesn’t mean you should!

Turning Creator Mode on changes the layout of your profile so that the FEATURED Section comes above the About Section.

Then at the top of the profile, underneath the headline we have what is called TOPICS – aka what you talk about.

You can also add a link here to an external website. You’ve 30 characters here to say what that link is. It’s not a lot of space but it’s a call to action. What do you want them to do. For example: “Free LinkedIn Profile Ebook”

As I said before be really clear about where you’re sending people and don’t just send them to your homepage.

🔆The Featured Section

I love the Featured section and I think it’s a really underutilised section of your profile – as I explain in this article: How To Maximise The FEATURED Section Of Your LinkedIn Profile.

The Featured section is an opportunity to showcase your most important information. What do your potential clients need to know.

What happens a lot is people feature their posts, especially if they have a lot of engagement which is fine, BUT you need to keep it updated, otherwise people are seeing posts that are months, even years out of date.

If you have a free offer or a Calendly link to book an appointment you definitely want to have these on your Featured section.

🔆Connect or Follow?

With Creator Mode on, it changes the Connect button to a Follow button. Some people like this option because it gives them control of who they connect with. You can see who is following you and you can then decide if you want to connect with them or not.

It’s good however, to ensure you do connect with the people you want to connect with and build a network of 1st degree connections because you can message your 1st degree connections, invite them to a  LinkedIn event or to follow your company page. You don’t have those options with 2nd or 3rd degree connections.

🔆 Creator Tools

With Creator Mode Turned on you then have access to creator tools such as LinkedIn Live, LinkedIn Audio events and LinkedIn Newsletters (like this one). If you have a blog then having a LinkedIn newsletter is a great idea as it will get your content out further and help you grow an audience.

So, turn on Creator Mode if you already create a lot of content and are actively posting on LinkedIn, if you want people to follow you rather than connect.

Don’t turn it on if you’re not active on LinkedIn or if you’re new to LinkedIn and have yet to build up a network. Or if you simply don’t want to!

🔆 Collaborative Articles 🔆

A new Feature in 2023 was Collaborative Articles, which is a collection of AI created articles that LinkedIn is inviting us to add our perspective to. Essentially we’re training LinkedIn’s AI for them!

You may have seen in your feed you that someone in your network has answered a question or contributed to an article or you may have been invited to add your perspective to a collaborative article.

As a bit of a carrot, LinkedIn is giving us the opportunity to earn a Top Voice Badge. It’s a community top voice badge and it has a 60 day limit on it, so you have to keep contributing to a particular subject to maintain the badge at the top of your profile.

I’m a little cynical about Collaborative Articles because as far as I can tell it doesn’t increase profile views (traffic to your profile) and people I know who have a top voice badge have said they’ve not seen any benefit other than the badge at the top of the profile!

But if you want to have a play, there is a whole host of subjects and articles you can contribute to, and more is being added.

You can see the list of Collaborative Articles here: https://LinkedIn.com/Advice

NOTE: LinkedIn uses the ‘Topics’ you list in Creator Mode to decide which articles to invite you to add your perspective to. So, make sure you add topics that are relevant.

🔆 Final Piece of Advice For 2024 – Stay Safe on LinkedIn!🔆

LinkedIn is seen as the most trusted social media platform but sadly it is open to abuse by unscrupulous players.

You need to do your due diligence when people are inviting you to connect because we’ve got a lot of fake profiles out there on LinkedIn and we can’t assume that just because a lot of people you may know are connected to them, they are actually bona fide. So you always check out their profile and then decide if you want to connect or not.

🔆Have a Strong Password

Unfortunately, LinkedIn does get hacked and basically when that happens you get locked out of your own account and the hackers go message all of your connections inviting them to click on a dodgy link and because we know the person or we’re connected to them we feel we trust them, click on the link and hey ho downloaded some malicious code!

Make sure you’ve got a secure password. Check does your password need to be updated and make stronger?

I use a tool called Bitwarden to test the strength of a password.

Go for a key phrase. A series of 2 – 3 words with spaces in between as this takes centuries to crack unlike Hello123 which takes seconds!

In Summary, the key actions for this year is:

• Review and update your profile – optimise it for the keywords you want to be found for
• Maximise the Featured section – what do your clients need to know?
• Be clear, if you are using custom buttons to take people off LinkedIn, where you are sending them
• Have a play with Collaborative Articles if you fancy it!
• Check and update your password and stay safe on LinkedIn

💥 If LinkedIn isn’t working hard for you or you’re not sure where to start with using LinkedIn, email judy@judithparsons.com or connect with me on LinkedIn to chat about how I can help.

Or book a virtual brew here and let’s make LinkedIn work for you . . . ⭐