So many people spend time on social media “scrolling and trolling”, watching the hours of day tick away, and getting very little back for their efforts. I am constantly asked, “Scott, what can I do to properly use LinkedIn for my business?”

Well, have no fear. That question, amongst many others that may be running through your head, will be discussed and answered below. I hope this article enlightens and empowers you to leverage the right way for your business.

There are 5 simple but yet effective things you can do on LinkedIn to drastically improve your business.

The first thing is to make sure that your profile is optimized. What I love about LinkedIn, is when Microsoft bought them out several years ago, the embedded SEO on all our profiles so they are more searchable, visible, and able to be connected with. There are specific keywords that you must have on your profile to appear in the searches for those individuals that you seek to connect with.

This is something that I understood, that if I wanted more speaking engagements, client acquisitions and podcast interviews, I had to have those keywords fluttered throughout my profile.

The second thing that you should do is defining your client or business avatar. In other words, the person that you are most likely to want to engage with, the person that you are most likely to network with or the person that is most likely to purchase your services.

This is something that I learned very early on. When you are super specific with the network that you were building, it raises your chances inability to close more sales to grow your business using LinkedIn. Make sure you only connect with those who could truly benefit from what you offer and those that can introduce you to your ideal client avatar.

The third thing that you should focus on is the proper way to message a contact. For those that are reading this, I am sure you can relate to me when I say that I have been victimized by a lot of people sending me unwarranted messages on LinkedIn that are 18 paragraphs long drunk-a-logs trying to sell me. That is not going to get me on a phone call or a zoom meeting with you.

What I found is that there is a strategic and best way to message someone on LinkedIn. This took me years of crafting and perfecting messages that are getting back the responses I wanted to build my business. When sending a message make sure that you craft your message by stating the person’s name first. Make it a relaxed and simple opening line such as, “Hey Chris. It’s great to be connected to you”.

The next thing that you want to do is bridge the gap between the other person and yourself, stating the connecting point of why you should connect without trying to sell them. Here is an example. “I noticed that we had similar backgrounds in xyz industry, and it would be great to hop on a call to learn more about what we are both doing and how we can best support one another here on LinkedIn”.

The final thing that you should do is to end your message with a call to action. Always remember, that questions lead to answers and statements lead to nowhere. I would simply say, “Is there a best day, time and number to reach you on so we can connect?”

The fourth thing that you should focus on within LinkedIn is using the automated notification messages that you were provided each day to reengage with all the connections that you have not spoken to in a while. The great thing about LinkedIn is just that. The platform truly wants you to continue building meaningful and genuine business relationships with people on the platform.

Use these automated messages that are given to you every single day in the notification section of the platform to your advantage. You don’t have to get fancy. What I found was, the more of these messages that I sent out every day, the more reengaged conversations I would create. This truly creates more leads than you have time. Which my friends, is always a good problem to have.

The fifth and final thing that you must do to grow your business using LinkedIn, is providing relevant, educational, and informative content. The best content practice that you should initiate in your business, is providing 3 pieces of content per week. This does not matter if it’s a post, article, or video. Just make sure that you do not sell or pitch in any of the content that you put out on the platform.

Your network is looking to engage with you and learn from you at the very same time. This is something that I learned over the years, that the more that I give to my audience, the more they give back to me.

And there you have it! The 5 simple things you can do immediately to see the proper traction on LinkedIn for your business. But this brings up a very important question.

Are you going to apply what you have learned?

Refer back to this article as many times as you require and remember why you read this in the first place. You don’t want to be wasting time on social media and getting nothing back in return for your efforts. It’s time to work smarter and not harder!