So, you’ve probably got a LinkedIn account and have seen mountains of content from LinkedIn-fluencers. You might even be posting on LinkedIn yourself.

LinkedIn is a goldmine of information, connections and opportunity.

I’ve used LinkedIn to land my last three jobs without ever sending a resume - including this one at EntryLevel.

But, 95% of users on LinkedIn don't know how to use the platform effectively and stand out from the rest.

It’s hard to stand out from the Sea of Sameness on LinkedIn.

So, I’m going to show you how to turbo charge your LinkedIn and be in the top 5% of LinkedIn’s 830 million profiles.

Note: this post was inspired by EntryLevel's Using LinkedIn for your job search event.

Step 1: Define Your Personal Brand

Your personal brand is a unique combination of skills and experiences that make you who you are.

It is how you are perceived by the world.

When people visit your LinkedIn profile, it should leave them with a memorable image of you.

Attention spans are at an all-time low, and it’s important to make a great impression from the get-go.

Defining your personal brand is the first thing to figure out before you construct a great LinkedIn Profile.

All it takes is answering these two questions

1. Who are you: What is your role, and what are your broader passions and interests?
2. Who could benefit from you: who is your target market and why would they connect with you?

Here is my example:

Who are you: Learning Designer, Lifestyle/Career Coach, Extreme Reader, No Code Maker

Who could benefit from you: Graduates figuring out what to do next, family business kids working on personal development, folks who love to study/read and create

Step 2: Optimise Your Profile

Once you have defined your brand, it’s time to optimise your profile.

Here are the essentials:

• Professional Image: just head and shoulders and preferable with a simple background
• Headline: Don’t just put your role here - use this field to say a bit more about how you see your role, why you do what you do, and what makes you tick.Example: “Creative and results-driven marketer that helps brands think outside the box”
• Custom URL: Setup a Custom URL for your profile
• Cover Image: You can create one easily on Canva. Try to share a few lines on yourself, and what you’re working on for your cover image.

• Summary Section: tell your story - give more background on your past experiences, anything interesting about yourself and why you do what you do
• Your Experiences: highlight your past experiences (whether paid or volunteer) and describe your biggest accomplishments
• You can set it to ‘Open for Work’ if you’re actively looking for a job

Tip: Use keywords in your headline, summary and experience section that you want to be searched for. For example, I used Ed Tech, Social Enterprise and Learning.

Step 3: Grow Your Network

Okay! Now that the foundations are there, it’s time to grow that network 🌱

There are two ways you can grow your network on LinkedIn.

1) Through LinkedIn Search

Find your former or current colleagues and friends. Find employees at companies you want to work at and connect with them or use specific keywords in search to find relevant people.

2) Other people’s network

Look at other popular people's posts, likes and networks. If it’s relevant to you, connect with them.

For example, if I am interested in Product Management, I can look at a famous PM or CEO on LinkedIn and find people to connect with through their posts likes and comments.

Aim to continually grow your network over time. In the past, I would set a goal to make 10 relevant connections per week to grow my network.

Important: Always add a custom note when connecting with a new person. And do not send more than 100 invites a day or LinkedIn will mark your account as spam/bot and limit your activity. For a deep dive on how to connect with anyone on LinkedIn, check out Ajay’s article here.

Step 4: Engage with content

Now that you have an optimised profile and starting to grow your network, lets start engaging with your audience.

Engaging with posts will mean more profile discovery and more connection requests!

Here are the two ways to engage with your audience.

1) Commenting on posts

This is an underused but very useful tactic. You don’t need to generate content from scratch, you just need to respond to other interesting posts out there.

You can do this by making an insightful comment on posts you see on LinkedIn, like asking a question or sharing relevant information on the topic.

The author of the post will notice your comments, and so will their connections, making for great engagement.

2) Make your own posts.

Writing your own content is the best way to increase your profile quickly.

You don’t have to be an expert to write content. Just pick a field you’re interested in and be consistent. A few easy content ideas to get you started:

• Stories: People love reading stories. You can write your own or share a story from a book or movie and a message you liked.
• Case Studies: You can share case studies talking about the problems you have solved, how you solved them and what the impact was.
• Trends: Look at ongoing trends and add your opinion on those topics.
• Job or Education Updates: This is an easy way to share your accomplishments with the world, and to be remembered by your connections by big milestones. They also tend to get a lot of traction.

Just remember not to copy anybody’s content and always give credit if you use someone’s story or case studies.

Aim for at least 2-3 posts per week. It is usually about a month until you see traction, but it is well worth it.

Are you in the top 5%?

If you want to be in the top 5% of LinkedIn profiles, you need to:

1. Define your personal brand
2. Optimise your profile
3. Grow your network, and
4. Engage with content on LinkedIn

Then you should start to see more opportunities come your way - maybe even your next job 💼