I’m embarrassed to say, for 20 years I did virtually nothing on LinkedIn.
Don’t make my mistake.. Make 2024 your LinkedIn year!
 
A year ago, I started taking it seriously. My plan was to post monthly… This is what happened.

I went from 100 followers to 2,752 followers.

So what?

Whenever I apply for a data contract, I can see if someone from that organization checks my LinkedIn profile. About 50% of the time they do, and out of that 50% they ALL contacted me after.

This never used to happen.

So, the company looks at my profile, they see that 2,700 people follow me and assume (correctly) that I’m a credible person to contact.

If you can get yourself over 2,000 followers then your chances of winning jobs will vastly improve. This reason alone is worth the effort.

If you’re here, you should be connected with me.. please send me a connection request https://www.linkedin.com/in/shano-collins/

I reached out directly to data analysts and engineers.

For the first half of 2023 I’d send a connection request to data professionals. About 40% of the time, they would connect with me. That’s how I started.

After 4 months, I got a message from LinkedIn saying I can only connect with people I already know in real life, and that If I continued I’d be banned from LinkedIn.

Take this warning seriously, LinkedIn ban for life, reddit is full of people complaining about being banned.

After that I stopped initiating connection requests. But since I had already built up a base of support, whenever I’d post I’d invariably get new connections & followers coming inbound.

Posting schedule

I started with a post every week, but after a while I was getting less interactions with my posts. So lately, I only post once per month, my inbound followers have seen a decrease because of this.

I’d suggest that you make an insightful post at least once per week and include a few comments on other people’s posts weekly.

Free Educational content

Everything I’ve done on social media is about education, now I get messages like this all the time.

It’s a nice start to the day to read comments like this, and you’re building a base of people around the world that will gladly help you if you ever need it.

Free YouTube Power BI course:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0MNASUjihAA

What should you write about?

Write about your own personal experiences.

What tools you’re learning or using.
What methods you’ve tested/used in applying for jobs.
Weird things you’ve observed in your field.
How to guides.
Celebrate your achievements, certifications.
Ask meaningful questions about your field.

Don’t write about politics, I’ve personally blocked people who write to me about politics, you’re here to make connections to further your career, not come off as a political extremist.

I’m wishing you a great 2024. All the best Shano.