Getting started with LinkedIn Part 3 – for workers/employees

Your company, or any company on LinkedIn for that matter, will have the most of its interactions with users through employee profiles. This means your organisation is already getting lots of clicks on LinkedIn, even though these clicks goes to employee profiles. How you as an employee and your organisation can capitalize on these impressions.

Here are some benefits of having strong employee profiles on the world’s largest professional network.

Employee advocacy

LinkedIn profile can be seen as the platform where the employee share the latest news, happenings, and achievements of your company and show how much they care. This will not only show what a dedicated employee they are, but it will actively advocate  for the employer brand and culture in the process.

Showcase credibility

One of the greatest benefits of LinkedIn is that it is seen as one of the most, if not the most credible professional business websites. If a user’s previous companies, clients, suppliers etc. acknowledge the fact that they worked together and even gives the user a recommendation, this adds to your entire company’s credibility.

People want to know people, and not necessarily just a ‘position’. You as an employee, your profile will showcase your career path and what led to work for the organisation you are in. It will also show what type of work you are hired to do and the standards you set for the company as a whole. The same skills that are typically transferable from one job to another will help showcase the experience of your work and ultimately reflect well on the company brand.

Trust

Employees promoting themselves and discussing the company brand online shows their employers fully trust them. Having LinkedIn, gives employees opportunity to represent themselves online and show that they trust the ‘company message’ they are conveying to the world via the platform. Good communication between employees and employers will lead to a boost of morale and employees would gain confidence in their voice and skills.

Strengthening of online presence

Employees list themselves as working for an organisation, then employers create a link from their profiles to the organisation. Their profile will then drive traffic to the company’s page which in effect will draw attention to the website and its services or products, and ultimately the brand.

This is a clever way in which LinkedIn can be used as a marketing tool for the company you work for. Employees who are brand ambassadors would create more opinion, content and influence within the industry and will definitely benefit the organisation as a whole.

Summary

LinkedIn is more than just a career-focused platform, and if used strategically, efficient employee profiles are in effect free online advertising space for the brand, the organisation. Like building up an online army, with every employee are on the same page in the organisation, ready to take the world by storm. Having a strong employee profiles on the world’s largest professional network brings benefits for long career path prospect for your future as a employee.

If you’re just getting started with LinkedIn, check out our Part One and Part Two of our series, and learn more about LinkedIn from Microsoft. Please share your work experience working with LinkedIn as an employee for an organisation in the comments below!