When it comes to LinkedIn, think of it this way – there are 800 million members, which equals 800 million opportunities.

Yet just ONE percent of them use LinkedIn to post content.

And most of those posts aren’t really that good. They’re either boring or too self-promotional.

Remember that it’s free to post and build your brand and business on LinkedIn.

LinkedIn can help you amplify your personal brand and build your network AND your business. That’s a compelling reason to use it especially as we have pivoted to an even more online business culture since the pandemic.

How did I get to where I am on LinkedIn?

I showed up consistently, gave back to others, provided value and built relationships.

Here are 15 strategies you can use to be successful on LinkedIn. Which of them will you start to do?

1. Create a strong LinkedIn profile – optimize your headline, cover image, profile photo, summary section and use the featured section.

2. Create LinkedIn content pillars, which are 3 to 6 subjects on which your posts will focus and then create a content calendar of posts and ideas. Look at industry trends, client pain points, current news, events and upcoming holidays for inspiration.

3. Be intentional, strategic and generous – like and share others’ posts and congratulate others on their successes, especially your VIP connections.

4. Don’t brag about yourself in posts – instead be helpful, give away helpful information, be client-centric, tell stories and show vs. tell and watch how much more engagement you’ll get. There’s no such thing as giving away too much free content on LinkedIn.

5. Post consistently. While you don’t have to post on LinkedIn every day, and you shouldn’t post more than once per day (or you’ll hurt the performance of both posts and can potentially be “overexposed”), you do want to find a regular cadence that works for you and helps you stay top of mind with your network. Remember that it’s always about quality over the quantity of posts so never sacrifice the quality of your posts over just having something to post.

6. And that’s where repurposing content comes into your social media strategy. There’s no need to reinvent the wheel over and over again when you have so much content in your archives already that you can repost. Start by requesting your full LinkedIn data archive, which includes all of your past posts – a great place from which to repurpose content. Review your analytics to see which posts did the best. Remember no one will remember what you posted a few weeks or months ago – the LinkedIn algorithm and user habits ensure that.

7. Join LinkedIn groups. The right groups can help you spread awareness about your value-added content (especially webinars) and make new strategic connections (just don’t post anything salesy or self-congratulatory).

8. Learn how the LinkedIn algorithm and hashtags work and use them to your advantage to increase your discoverability.

9. Post at the right time of day – (which generally speaking is in the mornings between 7:30am to 11:00am) but see what works best with your audience.

10. Don’t obsess over the number of likes you get on your posts as many people don’t pubicly engage with content for a variety of reasons – the major one being that they may not want their own network to know what they like on social media (such as their peers, co-workers and boss). Some of my best-performing articles and posts have been the ones with the least amount of engagement (likes and comments).

11. Respond to all comments which helps the performance of your posts and their ability to even go “viral”

12. Tell personal stories in your posts. Storytelling helps you stand out in a sea of sameness, makes you more relatable and memorable. People want to do business with those they know, like and trust, so being a human is a good thing – especially in a crowded field like legal.

13. Create custom images with Canva to bring your posts to life.

14. How you structure your LinkedIn posts is just as important as what you say. Structure your posts with short paragraphs and white space to encourage others to “stop the scroll.”

15. Track what your competitors are doing on LinkedIn and learn from them.

For most business professionals, LinkedIn is the social media platform where their clients and prospects are. You don’t need to be on every social platform – it’s better to focus on just one or two and do those well rather than stretching yourself thin.

So why aren’t you taking advantage of all LinkedIn – the largest and most important online professional network – has to offer?