Someone asked me how I got a Top Social Media Voice community badge on my profile (right below my name). I thought this would be a great point to cover in this week’s Dear Katie, where we’ll also be discussing three non-obvious ways to optimize your LinkedIn profile.

And if you’re working on creating the perfect LinkedIn profile, you know that every little enhancement helps a lot. I’ll start out by explaining how to get the top community badge that you can see above 👆 on your own LinkedIn.

Strategy 1: Top Community Badge

Community badges help your profile stand out, right? On a platform with 1+ billion users, every little bit helps. You can follow these two simple steps to get your own badge:

1. Head to the collaborative articles page on LinkedIn. You want to find the topic that aligns with your company and review the articles that are assigned to the topic.
2. Add your thoughts to one article per day. Share your opinions and thoughts, and keep doing this daily. In as little as a few weeks, a badge will likely be added to your profile.

You may receive your badge earlier than three weeks, but you want to keep sharing your thoughts and opinions until the badge is displayed on your profile.

And I found that by sharing my opinions, I started to engage with others more on LinkedIn, which led to my next strategy: creating an engagement sheet.

Strategy 2: Build an Engagement Sheet

Prospects often come to me saying that they’ve been posting on social media for a while but haven’t seen results. I usually follow-up with this important question: How often are you engaging with others? 

And more often than not, I hear crickets back.

Posting content on social media is not enough. You have to interact and engage with your audience.

If you haven’t done so already, I highly recommend that you build an engagement sheet that includes the names and links to profiles of the people you want to engage with regularly.

While everyone’s sheet will look a little different, I recommend having the following people on your list:

• Clients
• Mentors
• Friends 
• Prospects
• Staff and ideal staff
• Influencers in your niche or industry
• Anyone else you want to stay in touch with

You can build on this sheet over time.

How often should you go through this list? 

I recommend that you go through your engagement sheet at least once a week, but try to go through it more often if time permits. 

Strategy 3: Leverage In-Person Events To Boost Your Online Presence

The in-person events you attend, whether they’re local meetups or industry conferences, are goldmines for boosting your LinkedIn presence and optimizing your profile.

In-person events can:

Support Your Content Creation

Use these events as opportunities to create content. Snap photos and shoot videos. Meet up with other attendees and collaborate on content together – this is one of my favorite things to do at conferences.

Once the event is over – and while the energy is still buzzing – sit down and write a recap. Ask yourself:

• What are my top takeaways from this event?
• Which conversations changed my perspective?

Take these insights and transform them into pieces of content. Doing so will show that you’re engaged in the industry and that you’re someone who reflects on experiences and grows.

It also gives you an opportunity to share personal stories and insights – two things that will help you stand out on LinkedIn.

Show That You’re a Human Who Values Connections and Learning

Social media is great for building relationships, but nothing can replace in-person connections. When you attend in-person events, you show that you’re a real human being who truly values connections and learning. Make sure you’re sharing these events with your followers, so they can see more of the human behind your profile.

Enhance Online Relationships

Building off of the point above, you can optimize and enhance your LinkedIn profile if you can meet some of your connections in person. Connecting out in the real world will take your relationship to a new level.

Before attending events, reach out to your LinkedIn connections to see who else will be attending.

And, that’s a wrap on this Dear Katie question. My question for you is, which one of these three strategies are you going to try next?

Let me know!

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Until next time, cheers to your success!

Katie