...activity on LinkedIn reminds clients and prospects that you care

LinkedIn can be a powerful tool when there are gaps in face-to-face meetings or events with clients. We are all busy these days and activity on LinkedIn reminds clients and prospects that you care about today’s marketplace and --if you’re doing it right -- that you care about them and their organization.

At a high level, that’s what LinkedIn is all about: engaging with individual and company posts, sharing content, researching, keeping your profile in optimal shape and, of course, connecting. 

Here are responses to the more tactical and common questions about LinkedIn I receive in my current role managing the firm’s social media platforms and training the attorneys on the use of social media: 

How do I turn off notifications alerting my connections to my work anniversary or other updates?

The answer to this question is actually a question: Why?

Why wouldn’t you want your connections to be notified of significant professional updates? That keeps you top-of-mind with them and opens the door to engagement and conversation starters. Isn’t that what social networking is all about?

But… if necessary, you can control updates through the Settings and Privacy section:

Under the Privacy tab, navigate down to the header “How others see your LinkedIn activity.” From there you’ll see “Share job changes, education changes and work anniversaries from profile;” expand that area and toggle the button over to No.

Even if you’ve enabled sharing of profile activity, LinkedIn will NOT notify your network of changes to: 

• Profile photo
• Headline
• Intro
• Contact info
• Past positions
• Past education
• Volunteer experience
• Languages
• Skills
• Publications
• Certifications
• Projects
• Organizations

How do I determine which content to share with my connections?

If you have a large number of connections, it’s impossible to guarantee that the content you share is going to resonate with everyone.

Seventy percent of your shares should provide educational value to your connections...

The key is to share content that you find interesting and valuable with the hopes that the majority of your network will too. You are likely connected to people that “play in the same professional sandbox” so they are likely interested in the same topics or thought leadership pieces.

Share pieces that will provide educational value to your connections in addition to content about your firm or accolades about yourself or other colleagues. I recommend 70 percent of your shares be educational thought leadership; 30 percent could be firm news or self-promotional in nature.

How do I share accolades with my connections without sounding like I’m bragging?

First and foremost, make sure you have added accolades to your biography on your firm’s website as well as your LinkedIn profile. You can add these to your LinkedIn profile under Accomplishments – Honors & Awards.

...acknowledge others

Next, if there is a press release or news article about your recognition, one way to humbly share (keeping in mind the 70/30 rule mentioned in the previous point) is by acknowledging others in your post. Perhaps you can thank clients or colleagues that nominated you for the honor, give a shout-out to a mentor that helped you along your career path and/or congratulate the other award recipients by tagging them in your post.

If the award was celebrated at an event, sharing pictures of the event with a gracious personal comment is another option. Bottom line: you can share this type of news without coming off as big-headed. Plus there is nothing wrong with being proud of your professional accomplishments! They tend to garner a lot of engagement on LinkedIn.

Will sharing pieces of content annoy my connections? How much is too much?

If you are using quality content and updates and not chain memes or Facebook-like posts and photos, sharing content on LinkedIn is expected and appreciated. It’s a social networking site, afterall. What’s the point of having a profile if you aren’t doing anything with it? Plus, with the ever-changing algorithm set by LinkedIn, your content isn’t always going to be visible to your connections.

...err on the side of over-sharing versus under-sharing

It all depends on the activity of their other connections, how your post is performing (the volume of other people commenting and liking your shares), how often your connections are accessing the network and a host of other reasons. In short, I would err on the side of over-sharing versus under-sharing but if you want a definitive number, I’ll say share no more than 5 times per work week.

Who should I connect with and is it ok to decline connection requests?

In point #2, I talk about your connections playing in the same professional sandbox. This point holds true with connection requests.

If the person wanting to connect can bring you value and vice-versa, OR if they are in the same field, I would accept their request even if you don’t know them. I would also accept their request if you have mutual connections that you trust.

If the requester isn’t in your same professional arena and you don’t know them nor have mutual connections, it’s okay to decline their request. They will NOT be notified that you have done so. You are in control of your network so you can be as liberal or as conservative as you’d like with sending, accepting or declining connection requests.

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[Stephanie Dorssom is Digital Marketing Manager at Husch Blackwell. Connect with her on LinkedIn.]