LinkedIn is one of the oldest social networks that currently has the largest number of users in the world.
LinkedIn has become today one of the best professional social networks and an essential tool for Networking, connecting with other professionals in your sector and establishing agreements and synergies with people with complementary professional profiles to yours.
Advantages of having a LinkedIn account
LinkedIn is a professional social network with many utilities and advantages, of which we highlight these advantages or benefits:
- It is a great opportunity to have your Curriculum in digital format in a simple and dynamic way to implement, since you can modify it every time you have something new to add.
- LinkedIn allows you to actively work on your Personal Brand, since you will be able to make yourself known among your network of contacts through your professional profile and the contents that you publish in it.
- Network with companies and professionals in your sector and of your interest, since you can make queries and share content publicly and you will know that it will always be of interest to all your contacts.
- You can carry out free training activities, through the courses and presentations that many people share from their presentations or training talks at schools or events.
- By creating a LinkedIn account you can expand your network of professional contacts, so that you can create a quality community with other professionals who are dedicated to your same profession and can share experiences, anecdotes or common doubts.
- As a social network, you can share the contents of your blog, in order to have a quality channel from which to attract traffic.
- Getting a quality job according to your training and talents is undoubtedly one of the biggest attractions of this social network.
One way to get closer to the dream job will undoubtedly be to have recruiters from the companies where you want to work as contacts. In this way, if one of these recruiters publishes a job offer in their company on their LinkedIn profile, you will be able to apply for the position and inform them that you are interested.
How to register on LinkedIn?
If you want to be part of the LinkedIn community and create your own connections, you just have to register. Doing so is very easy. Just follow these steps:
Step 1:
Enter Linkedin.com. There, write the following information: Name, Surname, Email and a password that you will use to enter this social network. Then click Join Now.
Enter your name, surname, email and a password.
Step 2:
You must choose the country where you live and write the postal code of that place, if you wish.
Step 3:
Select whether or not you are a student. They will also ask you for the information of your current position, the company where you work and the sector where it works. Fill in those fields and click Next.
Write your current position, the company where you work and the sector where it works
Step 4:
Then you will see some options that LinkedIn will use to personalize your profile according to your interests. Choose the one that best suits what you want to achieve within that social network.
Choose what interests you most.
Step 5:
To continue, you must confirm your email account. Open your email and look for a message on LinkedIn. Click on Verify your email address.
Step 6:
You will return to the LinkedIn page and there you will see your email contacts to add them to your network. Select the ones you want and click Add contacts.
Basically and in other words, what this network does is cross its database with that of your email account and the matching emails show them to you as your contacts who use LinkedIn.
To start looking for them, you must click “Continue”. If however at this time you do not want to know which of your email contacts use LinkedIn, you can go to “Jump” this step.
Step 7:
Finally, choose the topics of your interest to receive articles related to them and click Continue. Done, you’re officially on LinkedIn.
How to set up my new LinkedIn account?
Once we have created our own account, let’s see how to optimize it properly:
The profile picture
Once our account is created, we will have to optimize the profile, adding the images and information of your CV respectively.
To do this, LinkedIn starts this setup by asking you to upload a profile photo. For this, you must follow a series of recommendations regarding branding and dimensions.
The recommended measurements for the LinkedIn profile photo will be 400 x 400 px and a maximum weight of 8 mb. It is not recommended to upload a lower resolution image, since it could be pixelated.
If it is something bigger, you can zoom in or out as you like once it is uploaded to the platform.
To upload a profile image you must click on “Upload photo” and in the window that opens go to “Select file”, to search among the images on your computer or device.
Once chosen, LinkedIn gives you the photo to frame it, in case it had dimensions somewhat greater than 400 px, both width and length.
You can move the yellow cursor vertically or horizontally, until the frame is as you like and without your face being cut off.
Just to the right you will see the preview of how your contacts will see your image. When you finish, do not forget to click on “Save” so that the changes made are saved.
Choice of topics of interest
The next step will be to search for topics of your interest within LinkedIn. For this, the platform will offer you the possibility to choose between several suggested topics.
You can choose 3 or more, to start having themes that the network can show you on your timeline. You must select or deselect each of them by clicking on the �+� sign in each box and uncheck them if you regret it.