Tips on how to use LinkedIn for your contracting services

Love or loathe social media, it’s hard to ignore it. Since its launch in 2003 LinkedIn has grown to be one of the top ten biggest social media platforms – it has over 500 million global registered users with 25 million of them being in the UK.

LinkedIn is slightly different to other platforms as it is primarily used for B2B purposes. Businesses have the option of creating company pages through which they can post jobs, share company news and updates. Or, as an individual you can connect with colleagues, peers, people who’d you like to work with and follow companies who you want to work for.

This is why LinkedIn is a great platform for contractors to be on as they can use to it to find contract roles and promote their contracting services at the same time.

With the millions of users on LinkedIn, you need to spend time optimising your profile so that recruiters and hiring managers can find and connect with you. This involves:

· Using a professional profile image (people are less willing to connect with someone with no profile image)

· Making sure your headline tells other’s exactly what you do – be specific as possible here as it’ll help you appear in search results for that term

· Including all your contact details

· Completing the experience and education sections

· Listing all your certificates

· Creating a compelling ‘About’ section which sells the benefits of using you – focus on the needs of your clients and discuss how you’ll go about solving their problems

How to get inbound enquiries through LinkedIn:

The reason for having an optimised profile is so that recruiters and hiring managers can find your profile but you can also improve your chances of receiving contract offers, by:

· Increasing your connections –the more people you are connected with the more news of job openings will appear in your feed

· Following company pages – news that is shared by companies you follow will appear in your feed. This saves you having to search for it

· Posting updates on your work availability

· Sharing details of the projects you’ve worked on

· Asking ex-clients, colleagues or peers for recommendations

· Joining LinkedIn groups that are related to your area of specialism and taking part in group discussions

· Liking, sharing and commenting on other’s posts

· Sharing your own ideas and tips to highlight your expertise

The key to succeeding on social media is to remember that it’s a place to engage with other’s and the more you do this the greater your chances are of receiving work offers.

Here at SG Accounting, we have over 20 years of experience supporting contractors, from those who are taking their initial steps through to seasoned contractors who have been doing it for years.

Our team is on-hand to help you with VAT, payroll, IR35 reviews, expert tax advice and much more. To see how we can support you, speak to one of our Directors on 01962 867550 or send us a message via our website and we’ll call you back shortly.