Even though LinkedIn has long been known as a recruiter and job seeker social media site, it is extremely under-utilized as a recruitment search AND marketing source. I think most recruiters still just think of it as a place to source and research candidates. And candidates barely know how to use it, not realizing they can be actively marketing themselves to the recruiters and businesses interested in hiring them.
With the Recruiter Lite membership abolishing messaging to group members, I think it’s more important than even for recruiters, hiring manager and others in Talent Acquisition to make use of LinkedIn free (or cheap) features.
Beyond LinkedIn’s great Advanced Search features, it has other communications and engagement features (Introductions, Who’s Viewed My Profile, Who’s Viewed My Updates, Groups, People You May Know, Contacts) that many LinkedIn members simply don’t know about or use.
Introductions:
I simply don’t understand why people don’t make more use of Introductions. (And in LinkedIn this is dangerous, since LinkedIn has certainly showed us its “Use It or Lose It” attitude lately!) Maybe they simply don’t know where they are? (Drop-down arrow to the right of Send InMail button.) You can even find whom you have in common (and with the new In Common feature what you have in common) and then ask them if they are willing to forward the intro. You get 5 with a free account, 15 with a paid account.
Who’s Viewed my Profile:
I absolutely love this new feature (Here’s my latest article on it and video on it.) Let’s just say the new analytics are worth the price of admission! I recommend not only that people check out who has viewed their profile (last 5 with the free, everyone with the paid), but also do some “proactive viewing.” (Meaning create and save a search of ideal candidates and then every week or so just view their profile so you show up in THEIR Who’s Viewed.)
Also, with LinkedIn’s latest “Who You’ve Viewed” feature you can see who else LinkedIn thinks you should be looking at and check them out too.
Who’s Viewed My Updates:
Since LinkedIn got rid of Signal and the Activity Feed (Use it or lose it) it’s been harder to use Updates to create relationships. But now you can at least see who has responded to your updates and engage accordingly. Perhaps with the pending release of LinkedIn Publisher we will get some of our update search capabilities back too!
Groups: Even though LinkedIn stole the ability for recruiters in Recruiter Lite to send messages via groups, we can still do it in our free personal accounts. Yay! Let’s use it while we can to reach out and engage with those outside our network!
People You May Know:
You might as well let LinkedIn do the work and show you who they think you should know. Plus when you connect with someone from this feature you don’t have to jump through the usual LinkedIn connecting hoops. But always customize your 300-character invitation when you can.
Contacts:
I’m not sure what I like more – the new Who’s Viewed or Contacts. I guess I don’t have to pick. To find out all the ways the new Contacts feature can help you in your social recruiting, read this article.
Content Marketing:
As social recruiting trends towards Content Marketing, Influencer Positioning and Social CRM Systems, it would serve the Recruiter well to invest their time (if not resources) in these very aspects supported now on LinkedIn through Media Sharing, Update Mentions, LinkedIn Pulse and Contacts.
Whether posting a white paper, mentioning a success story in an update, sharing relevant content from LinkedIn Pulse or managing your network (keeping notes, tagging and setting reminders) in Contacts, LinkedIn is a hot hot place to be and not to be ignored in 2014!
Viveka von Rosen is the author of LinkedIn Marketing: An Hour a Day, contributing “expert” to LinkedIn’s official “Sophisticated Marketer’s Guide” and is known internationally as the “LinkedIn Expert”.
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