How To Become More Productive on LinkedIn

With more than 800 million users, LinkedIn has rapidly become one of the most important social networking sites for professionals. It can help you build your brand, connect with top industry influencers, get hired, and even land new clients.

With so much potential, it’s no wonder we spend so much time on it. In fact, the average LinkedIn user spends 17 minutes per day on the site.

While a LinkedIn presence certainly has its advantages, it can be super time-consuming.

So, how can you get the most out of your time on LinkedIn and become more productive? Keep reading to find out.

1. Spend less time browsing and more time growing your network 

It’s easy to get distracted on LinkedIn. 

After all, there are thousands of interesting articles, groups, and discussions to click on. 

Unfortunately, all this browsing isn’t doing you much good. 

Instead, don’t waste your precious time browsing LinkedIn. Instead, use it to grow your network. 

Spend a few minutes each day adding connections, commenting on discussions, and posting on Pulse. 

Make it your goal to meet new people, connect with influencers, and exchange ideas. 

2. Make meaningful connections 

Aside from growing your network, it’s important to make meaningful connections. 

What does that really mean? 

It means connecting with people you actually want to talk to. 

Now, you might think that connecting with anyone and everyone is a great way to network. But, in reality, that’s just not effective. 

How can you make meaningful connections? 

First, be picky.  Instead of connecting with strangers, focus on connecting with people you already know, like, and trust. 

Next, try to add value to your connections. Don’t just add people to your network that you don’t know or won’t ever communicate with. Instead, be intentional.

Finally, don’t forget to manage LinkedIn connections and keep your network organized. If you're wondering how to see connections on LinkedIn more efficiently, LinkedIn productivity apps can help you — they allow you to add tags and export LinkedIn contacts and even bulk remove unnecessary connections to keep your network fresh and relevant.

3. Don't be afraid to repurpose old content  

Creating original content takes a lot of time -- time that you probably don’t have.  

Luckily, you don’t have to spend all that time creating original content. 

Instead, reuse your old content. For example, you could turn an old blog post into a short LinkedIn Pulse article. Or, you could take an old video and turn it into a LinkedIn video. 

With a little repurposing, you can breathe new life into old content, which can help you save time and get more mileage out of your efforts.

4. Plan your content in advance

Create a content schedule for the following month by thinking about things like industry trends, customer pain issues, current news, events, and impending holidays.

As you plan your Linkedin content strategy, consider what types of content will work well on LinkedIn. 

LinkedIn video, for example, is a popular type of content that receives a lot of engagement. So, think about ways you can leverage that format within your content calendar. 

Another thing you can do is request access to your complete LinkedIn data archive, which contains all of your previous postings and is a goldmine of material you can reuse.

5. Spend less time posting and more time commenting 

Although posting new content is extremely important, it isn’t everything. Simply creating new posts isn’t doing much good. 

If you really want to build your network, you need to actually comment on posts and engage with people. 

Commenting is an easy way to start conversations, connect with influencers, and build relationships.

So, instead of posting your own content, comment on other people’s posts. 

6. Schedule time to focus on LinkedIn 

If you want to get the most out of LinkedIn, you need to focus on it.  

Unfortunately, this isn’t always easy.  

After all, we all have busy schedules. It’s easy to get sidetracked and forget to set aside time to work on LinkedIn.  

Luckily, there’s an easy solution.  

Schedule time to focus on LinkedIn. Decide how much time you want to devote to it each week and then stick to it.  

In addition, avoid scheduling too many things at once.  

Spreading yourself too thin can result in burnout, which isn’t good for you or your LinkedIn profile.

7. Optimize your search efforts 

LinkedIn can be a powerful tool for finding qualified candidates, keeping up with industry trends, and discovering new business opportunities. 

However, if you aren’t using LinkedIn’s advanced search capabilities, you’re missing out. 

LinkedIn’s search functionality is incredibly powerful. In fact, it’s one of the most powerful search functions in any social network.  

You can filter results by location, industry, company, title, and more.  

In addition, you can save your search criteria, get updates on new matches, and save and share results.  

So, don’t be afraid to dig deep and explore.

8. Stay on top of your inbox  

If you’re spending all of your time sending messages on LinkedIn, you probably aren’t getting much work done.   

So, it’s time to stop.   

Instead, you might want to set aside a specific time each day just to respond to messages.   

This can help you stay focused and save time.   

Additionally, LinkedIn productivity apps can help you manage your LinkedIn inbox, add notes and tags, pin the most important messages, and more. That way you can set your priorities straight and never miss an important message without wasting your time scrolling through your cluttered inbox.

9. Be strategic with groups  

Groups are a great place to find information, connect with like-minded people, and build your network.  

However, they can also be a waste of time.  

Joining every group you can get your hands on might make you feel good, but it won’t actually help you accomplish your goals.  

So, be strategic with groups.  

First, think about what you want to accomplish on LinkedIn. Then, join groups that will help you accomplish those goals.  

Only join groups you actually want to engage with. Don’t join a bunch of groups just so you can hit some numbers — it will only waste your time.

Now it’s your turn

With thousands of interesting articles, groups, and discussions to click on, it can be hard to stay focused on LinkedIn.

Fortunately, by spending less time browsing and more time growing your network, making meaningful connections, repurposing old content, planning ahead, setting aside time, optimizing your search efforts, keeping your inbox organized, being strategic with groups, and using LinkedIn productivity apps, you can become a more productive LinkedIn user.   

Use the tips to make the most of your LinkedIn experience.