A beginners guide to LinkedIn for translators

LinkedIn is a popular professional networking platform launched in 2002. Today, in 2023, it contains more than 950 million members from more than 200 countries and 60+ million companies. Such an impressive statistic makes LinkedIn the most significant professional network and, as a result, one of the best platforms for businesses and self-brand development.

Many use it as the most popular professional network as the digital substitute for business card exchange. Having a presence on LinkedIn is quasi-mandatory to connect in various industries. This is an excellent source to promote companies, find new customers, and extend your professional network.

Your profile - your business card

Make sure your profile is accurate and complete. It is your virtual CV and the first impression of you as a professional. LinkedIn provides a list of tools that can help you prove your skills:

• Fill in the description and provide the primary information about yourself;
• Add your experience and educational information; this is especially important if your education is related to the current topic/industry;
• Highlight your primary skills;
• Ask about recommendations from your clients - LinkedIn provides a separate row for them.

LinkedIn also adds some really smart things to the user profiles, like endorsements from colleagues or business partners and fields for you to add portfolio items (such as presentations, certificates, etc.)

Make sure to incorporate a unique yet professional photo into your profile. Of course, you can showcase your individuality, but ensure you maintain a correct appearance.

Unlike other social media, LinkedIn doesn't require showing everyday life - you don't have to put every moment out there meticulously, but as with a "regular" CV, make sure you portray yourself wholly and coherently. Tell your story, put the facts out there, and add character. But if you have what to say, especially in your professional field - LinkedIn could be a great tool to share knowledge with fellow thinkers and build a blog.

Once you have set up, you can add people you already know. Start with friends and colleagues and close business relations. You can ask them for some endorsements while you are at it. For example, if you worked as a translation projects manager at some company, add your direct superior to that job on LinkedIn and ask for an endorsement. Most people love doing these endorsements, not only because they (hopefully) are friendly people but also because that gives them some additional visibility (and shows them off as credible managers of other people).

We recommend that you do not randomly add people to your network on LinkedIn but only people you've had something to do with. Especially if you connect your address book with LinkedIn, it will find everyone you might have been in contact with throughout the years, but that does not necessarily mean these are meaningful connections in your life.

Groups - the way to show you

It's not exactly original, but LinkedIn also has groups (open and closed ones), and it makes a lot, we repeat, a lot of sense to join groups. The groups are perfect tools to extend your network, share and collect knowledge, and gain visibility; also, they are a great source of information and education.

As a translator, there are a lot of rather large groups on translation, localization, internationalization, global communications, marketing, linguistics, language technology, and related fields. Some are independent, but most are affiliated with a company, association, or university.

To start exploring groups on LinkedIn, it's a good idea to join a few and observe their activity for a while. Like any social network, it's beneficial to participate in existing discussions, answer questions, and offer help before posting your content. Joining groups can also bring you closer to potential contacts, especially if you need help connecting with them. You can subscribe to various discussions and stay up-to-date on community happenings.

Companies pages - your chance to find the right place

Companies pages are a significant source of information for LinkedIn users. You can find there the primary information about the companies you are interested in, updates, and what is essential - vacancies. So, if you are highly interested in some companies - we highly recommend following them via LinkedIn. Also, company pages can show the entire atmosphere inside the company, their style, business voice, etc.

Content as your key to success

As we already mentioned above, you can create different content on LinkedIn, and this content can play a significant role in your success. You can share your CV with the cover letter with your contact, create attractive carousels, or write longreads and short posts with hot topics to prove your expertise.

Besides content generated by you, LinkedIn will also remind your contacts about you. For example, it automatically generates work anniversary notifications or signals to others when you change the job.

Contact the right people with the right speech Sometimes, it is hard to find or contact specific people. Emails can get into spam, or you can never meet them live, especially if you are not an attendee of the same events/conferences/summit. LinkedIn makes the world close to you. With the right speech, you can contact the right people and ask the questions that arise.

Conclusion: networking tricks with LinkedIn

Although this introduction to LinkedIn is brief, it is crucial to understand how the platform's mechanics can benefit your branding. As a part of the professional network, you don't need to distinguish yourself from a random audience to connect with the right people. You're already a part of a crowd that shares similar interests, which can expedite your interactions with others.

But remember that LinkedIn will always encourage you to share news, keep your profile updated, and find more people you work with, so it will be more capable of analyzing its users more accurately. A LinkedIn user with outdated job information has a much lower value to a platform whose only purpose is peer recruiting and brand building. Therefore, repeat the core message: If you are present, do it right. LinkedIn can work exceptionally well in professional contexts if your profile is at least considerably complete and polished. You will build a network rather quickly, and joining a few groups will get you in touch with many people and ideas.

We hope you enjoyed reading this article! Stay tuned to get more information!