How can I get more out of LinkedIn? A guide for sustainability leaders

Most of my clients are sustainability leaders working through a time of career transition. Often they are looking for their next role, or considering a move into freelance, consultancy or portfolio work. What many of these leaders have in common is that they are on LinkedIn, they use it a little bit, they feel they ‘should’ use it more, but don’t feel remotely enthusiastic by the prospect (I get it, that was me a couple of years ago). In this article, I’ll share with you the simple steps I walk my clients through to help them better leverage LinkedIn without becoming a slave to complicated and time consuming systems. 

Step #1: Be clear on what you’re aiming for

It sounds simple, but is so important, and something I see many people skipping over. Make sure you are clear on the career or professional goals that you want to achieve. This may be very specific - you might have a particular role, industry, or even company in mind that you want to work for. Or, your goals may be vaguer. You perhaps might like to dip your toe in the water of portfolio work, or explore consultancy. In either case, get clear about where you’re headed - focussing your time and energy on LinkedIn in the same direction will help to avoid wasted effort. 

Step #2: Get your shop window basics (i.e. profile page) up to scratch

First get everything up to date (including asking for some recent recommendations and updating your latest skills). Then make sure your photos really represent you. Your profile photo should look like you, ideally relaxed and smiling, but in a professional context (i.e. no holiday snaps). Don’t worry about getting this done professionally, but you might want to ask a friend with a good eye for a photo to help you with this. Also remember to add a banner photo that represents something about you professionally. Us sustainability people often have lovely scenes of nature as a banner, but if you have a photo of you ‘in action’ professionally, that would also be great. 

Step #3: Spend some time on your headline and your ‘About’ section. 

Remember that your headline is your showcase. Include your job title, but add some more colour to give readers a sense of your experience, strengths or areas of interest. You may like to use a format like this:

Current job title at company | Area of expertise/interest | Years of experience | What you’re looking for on LinkedIn | Something personal/fun

Your about section is the place to really sell yourself. With your goal firmly in mind, call out the highlights of your strengths, experiences and achievements. In this section you really want to land the things that are unique about you, perhaps your own personal philosophy or mission that you’re on within your professional work. Make sure to conclude with some information about your current status, what you’re looking for LinkedIn to help with, and what action you’d like people to take next (perhaps contact you for a coffee chat?). Make it nice and easy on the eye for the reader by breaking up blocks of text, and use bulleted lists and emojis. 

Step #4: Post regular content, finding the way that works best for you

The goal of content is to remind your connections that you exist, remind them what you’re all about, and ideally, to show off your strengths. You have unique experience and knowledge that is worth sharing with the world. Think about what feels easiest for you - recording videos, reposting articles or other content with your own take, inspiring others through short stories and/or visuals, or educating/helping others through longer form content like articles. Find the way that feels easiest to you and lean into that. 

Think about how often you might be able to share, and be consistent. Whilst those actively selling services may post every day, you might find that once a week or once a fortnight is more manageable. 

Finally, keep it human. LinkedIn is full of boring, professional, corporate content. The more you can show of your own personality, opinions, vulnerability, and unique ‘take’ on things, the better. 

Step #5: Play the numbers game and get connecting

Build your network by searching for and sending connection requests to people who might be able to help you with your goal. People who work for the company you want to work for. People who do the job you’re aiming for. People who understand the industry or professional specialism you want to move into. 

This is where I urge you - don’t overthink it. Many people you invite to connect won’t accept your connection - perhaps around 50% will ignore you. This is rarely to do with you, and far more about the way they use LinkedIn and the type of network they are cultivating. 

If you see it as a numbers game, the rejection from a little ghosting can feel less painful. I suggest maxing out LinkedIn’s weekly connection limit (it will allow you to send around 100 invites per week), but if you can’t manage that then just send as many as you have the energy for each week. I have a diary note to do this once a week. After a little while, LinkedIn’s algorithm will get to know who you’re interested in - the suggestions in their “people you may know” list are usually spot on. 

Step #6: Start the conversation

Once someone’s accepted your invite to connect they have opened the door to a conversation. Sending a little message to thank them for connecting, and to introduce yourself can be a nice way of getting a conversation going. Be as open as you feel able to, for example: “I’m really interested in getting to know more people in your profession because I’d like to make a move into this area in future”. Perhaps ask them a relevant question, but without expecting too much from them. Hard sells at this stage will turn people off, but this is the place where your LinkedIn connections turn into real life chats, friends, colleagues and clients.

Step #7: Get engaged and involved in the comments

The more you engage with people’s content on LinkedIn, the more your contacts will see you, and the more you’ll be seen by people you want to get to know better. If you see a post and enjoy or appreciate it, then give it a quick thumbs up. Even better, say something in the comments. The comments are a great place to showcase your area of expertise or interest and will help you build a profile as someone who knows what they’re talking about. You will have lots to offer others by sharing your take, so be generous.

Step #8: Still reluctant? Explore what’s holding you back

You may have read the first seven steps and now feel ready and raring to go (or at least reluctantly accepting of the action you need to take). Lovely! 💛

Or… you may still be feeling hesitant. Maybe something I’ve suggested here has struck a nerve with you. Perhaps you knew all these steps anyway but just don’t want to do it. 

In which case, you’ll need to really explore what’s holding you back. It might be that you don’t feel ready, confident, or motivated. 

Maybe your goal isn’t the right one for you and you need to explore a goal that’s really going to motivate you to take action and make it happen. Maybe you’re in some way afraid of achieving your goal and have moved into procrastination and self-sabotage mode. Or perhaps your inner critic is loudly telling you that you’ve not got anything worth saying, or that people won’t want to connect with you. Talking these through with a friend, mentor, coach or counsellor could all be very helpful.

Finally, it’s worth remembering that with new things like this we rarely feel fully ready, confident, motivated or certain. Sometimes you have to take the action first, and wait for the certainty, confidence and motivation to follow. 

Or, just do what I do and hit ‘post’ before throwing your phone on the other side of the room and hide in the corner for a while. 

From Liv 💛

P.S. If you’ve found this useful, then please join my weekly email community for regular doses of wisdom like this, straight to your inbox. If you’re interested in working with me, then check out my 121 coaching packages and use this link to arrange an initial chat with me. And if you’d like me to talk to your team, organisation or community about this, or any of my other articles, then please reach out via email to enquire about speaking/workshop engagements.