As well as connecting you to people you know, your LinkedIn or Twitter accounts and the IFoA Communities, our new digital community platform, in particular, can provide great ways of getting your expertise in front of new people and talking to your peers. Any one of your connections may become a useful professional contact in the future, and their posts will help you to stay in touch with what your industry colleagues are thinking.
Regularly posting content that your connections might find useful and interesting helps to keep your expertise front of mind and builds your professional authority, whatever professional stage you’re at. The more content you post that people like, share or comment on, the more you will be seen by others on that platform.
This guide takes you through how to effectively share your thoughts on social media and how to network effectively with people that you already know, and those you don’t. While this guide focuses on the platforms mentioned above, the guidance in this document can be used to inform your networking activity on other social media platforms too.
If you’re active on social media, you will already have some connections on your accounts, but increasing this number is a critical part of successful social media networking. If you have 100 connections your visibility will remain low. If you have 4000 connections, more people will be shown your posts more often.
As you go about your professional life, reaching out to new people that you come into contact with, especially on LinkedIn, is a great way of gathering connections who will be contactable for years to come when you may both be in different roles with potentially different networking needs.
You can look at the individuals who have engaged with your posts online by simply clicking the number of interactions on each of your posts.
Watch out for those who you aren’t already connected to. If they look professionally interesting to you, you can connect, or follow them. But just like in real life, they might not be very interested in you unless they know something about you and why you’re inviting a connection. Write a brief message introducing yourself when you invite them to connect and mention any connections or points of shared interest so you’re not just cold calling.
Share what you feel comfortable with. Leaving comments on posts by people that you’d like to be connected to is a great way of introducing yourself. For anyone who replies to you, you can consider asking them to connect.
If someone you respect has written a great piece of content, why not share it with your followers? When writing your post, make sure that you tag the author. To do this on LinkedIn or Twitter, type the @ symbol in front of the person’s name or account name and they’ll be alerted to your post. If you write your post positively the author may want to reply or share it. And then you’ve made another warm contact who you can invite to connect.
If you’re not sure where to find great content, why not follow the IFoA’s social media accounts? You can also share your thoughts and ideas with other members and connect with your peers. The IFoA is on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram and YouTube.
You can tag the IFoA if you want to notify them of your post, they may like or share it in response, increasing its reach amongst members.
To find other people who you might be interested in connecting with, you can carry out searches on your platforms of choice and look for people who have roles or areas of expertise which are of interest to you. Perhaps they work in your city, or they’re an expert in a specific field. LinkedIn in particular has great search functionality allowing you to search within companies or locations for example. Once you’ve found someone of interest you can invite a connection, but of course, turning them into a warm contact rather than a cold approach is sensible. Again, why not find some content that they’ve posted and comment on it? If they reply, you have a nice route into inviting a connection.
You can also try to reach out further by using hashtags in your posts. Hashtags are simply a way of turning a normal word into a search term on social media platforms. Use the # symbol in front of a word on Twitter or LinkedIn and once published in a post, it will link through to all the other relevant and popular posts which have used the same hashtag. Hashtags can be a useful way for people to find content that they’re interested in on specific topics. Your post will also come up in these searches and because of this, they can be a great way of reaching out to people beyond your existing network.
When thinking about which hashtags to use, think of the topics covered in your post and which ones will be most interesting to your connections. On LinkedIn it’s recommended to use up to five at the bottom of your posts. And on Twitter you can just turn a few appropriate words in your text into hashtags.
The best way to get seen on the social platform(s) you’re using is to originate and publish your own posts. Making sure that your posts are as engaging and useful as possible to people in your network is a great way to get them engaging with what you publish, and then hopefully increasing the reach of your content outside of your immediate network, leading to more connection requests. But using social media to network effectively is about more than just opening your account and typing.
Whether you’re publishing things on social media already or not, taking a little time to consider what you really want to focus on in your posts can help you develop a sense of purpose around what you’re doing. This will help you create better content, that overtime may become quicker and easier to produce.
The more likes, comments and shares your posts get, the more the social media platforms will show your posts to new people, and the greater the potential for you to create new connections.
Write about the key topics which you’re an expert in and the areas which you want to be known for. Define a list of the key topics that you and your organisation are experts in, and the insight you can share with your connections, and use the tips below to write engaging posts about them.
Once you’ve articulated the themes you want to write about, taking a moment to think about what other people will be interested in will pay dividends. Focus on the types of people that you’d like to connect with and think about the things which might be useful, interesting or even inspiring to them. Considering your audience will help you write your posts so that more people like your posts, comment on them and share.
The first things that people often think to post about on their social media accounts in regard to their professional activity usually involves writing about; starting a new job, speaking at or attending a professional event, or mentioning a report or article which you may have contributed to.
These are all very sensible things to write about on your social channels. But when people only post about themselves, readers may quickly become bored of self-promotion and tune out.
Monitoring your preferred media publications or social accounts for things to write about and share is a great strategy that can help your posts stay fresh, allow you to talk about a wider range of themes, and show people that your finger is on the pulse of your industry. Pointing to news and great content featured by highly authoritative sources, and ideally adding your own perspective as a comment when you share them, is a great way to generate more content to publish yourself. It also takes much less time than writing your own considered pieces for every post. It’s recommended to share news stories or content from other sources for roughly half of your posts, some people do more.
If you’re writing your own piece, referencing or linking to an informative news article or report elsewhere, pull out an interesting sounding top line, or use a great quote from the article. This will help to grab attention and let readers know what it’s about, and hopefully entice them to continue reading.
Your expertise in a particular niche will make your content credible and stand out from the crowd, so draw on your own experiences and challenges to evoke passion and provide a different take on a topic.
People who will want to connect with you will value your knowledge, expertise and experiences whether you’re starting your career or volunteering if you’ve retired. Everybody has valuable experiences, so whether you’re studying for exams, returning to work, or someone with the benefit of many years’ experience, be generous to yourself when thinking about your valuable insights, and consider what other people out there might not know that you do.
Publishing posts relatively regularly is a great way to carry on building your authority and your contacts. Post regularly and aim for an achievable flow of content. On LinkedIn a post every week or so is reasonable to keep your profile active and visible, as well as balancing with your workload. Twitter can take more posts and you could aim for the region of 3-5 per week as they can be shorter and quicker to write. Why not set a calendar reminder for yourself to publish your posts? Or if it suits you, write a few posts at one time and publish them over a couple of weeks.
Content that speaks to wider themes such as leadership, motivation, equality, or personal and team achievements for example, can reach beyond your existing connections as they address themes that lots of people are interested in. Big moments in your life and career, including events you attend, exam successes, challenges that you’ve overcome - can hold universal appeal.
As well as covering topics that are natural for you, you should also use a natural tone of voice. Your readers are following you for your insights, so don’t try and write like an academic (unless you are one!). Write how you speak, and readers will respond. Feel free to use emojis if you usually would. They can be a great way to grab attention when used sparingly.
Where possible attaching an image, a photo or even a video can be a great way of making your post stand out in social media feeds. Adding a photo of yourself at an event, or a graphic from a report you’ve contributed to, can bring that little bit of extra interest for people when they’re deciding whether to click on your post or not.
If you’re posting about a topic that is difficult to formulate your own response to, try asking questions that your connections might have responses to. Questions or neutral positions can often be easier than articulating a position on complex topics.
Most people who post about their professional lives use their social media accounts in public mode, so that their posts can be read by potential new connections. Where you’re posting publicly, whether about work or your private life and on any platform, it’s worth remembering that anyone will be able to see those posts. Even private posts can easily be shared by others, so it’s always sensible to bear that in mind. Across all social media platforms you can use your settings to dictate who can see your posts.
For those who are hesitant about public discourse, finding a way to confidently take part in industry conversations can open real opportunities for you as social media is now the first place that most people go to when finding out about others. Always spell check and re-read what you write before posting to reassure yourself that you’ve said what you mean. But if you’re unsure about posting something relating to your work, it’s best to ask for your company’s social media guidance or check with the appropriate colleague.
If you don’t find commenting publicly comfortable (or even if you do!), IFoA Communities, our new digital community platform for members, allows you to connect with other members, discuss emerging topics, and collaborate in an easy-to-navigate environment.
These enjoyed a heyday some years ago, but some are still vibrant and offer an often-private place to join in with, and start conversations between people with shared professional interests. Don’t over-promote yourself or your company in these groups, but share content and insights that will genuinely be of value to other members, and you will get noticed.
For some people, the first step in networking online is shifting from simply reading things that other people post, to commenting, to posting things themself. If all you’ve done to date is read other peoples’ posts, why not start off by replying to some of the ones that interest you the most or are best fit for your role and area of expertise? LinkedIn in particular is a pretty friendly place, so why not find a post written by someone you know and leave a comment?
Once you’re feeling more confident you can consider writing your own post. Get started by writing your post, doing this in Word (or similar) is a good idea so that it’s easy to spell check. If you’re unsure, ask a trusted contact to read it before publishing. You can select a photo to attach if you want to share one. And then head to your platform of choice on a desktop or by using the apps for LinkedIn or Twitter.
Start by typing in the box on the homepage as shown below. Or you can paste your text from another document. When you’ve double checked your post, or added your image using the functionality under the input box, you can just publish it! You can edit posts after they’ve been published on LinkedIn. And while Twitter doesn’t allow that, if you make a mistake, you can always delete and start again if you want. If you’re using the apps, look for the “add post” icons at the bottom of both Twitter and LinkedIn.
