Are You Wasting Your Valuable Time on LinkedIn?

Do you ever jump on LinkedIn to check your messages, and the next thing you know you’ve spent thirty, sixty or even ninety minutes, but you’re not really sure if you’ve accomplished anything?

Today I’d like to address time management, because people are constantly asking me how much time they should spend and how can they make sure their efforts get results.

How much time should I spend on LinkedIn?

There’s no cookie-cutter answer here, but let’s see how almost 1500 people responded in my latest LinkedIn user survey when asked, On average, how many hours per week are you spending on LinkedIn?

Half of the respondents spend no more than two hours a week, and the other half spends three hours or more each week, with 10 percent of respondents spending eight or more hours a week on LinkedIn.

What should I be doing with my time on LinkedIn to optimize my effectiveness?

Like most things in life, the more time you put in, the more results you get–as long as you’re spending your time doing the right things.  So, what are the right things?

Without having a one-on-one LinkedIn consulting session with you to learn more about you and your business, it’s hard for me to answer that specifically, but here are the top three activities that will produce optimize effectiveness on LinkedIn, regardless of your individual objectives and strategies on LinkedIn. They have been extracted from my free 20-question LinkedIn self-assessment titled LinkedIn Success Scorecard: How do you measure up? Download your free copy below.

In an average week, how often do you post an individual status update? [0 = 0 points, 1-5 = 5 points, 6-10 = 7 points, 10+ = 10 points}

To learn more about posting status updates, read LinkedIn Status Updates: The Rule Everyone Should Follow. 

Have you saved at least one Advanced People Search? [10 points]

To learn how easy it is to amp up your results by using saved searches, read Easy Ways to Generate Leads With LinkedIn.

When people in your target audience show up on your “Who’s Viewed Your Profile” list, how often do you send them a message or an invitation to connect?  [Never = 0 points, Sometimes = 2 points, Frequently = 5 points, Always = 5 points]

Read Who’s Viewed Your Profile: LinkedIn’s Top Rated Feature to learn how this LinkedIn feature can pay big dividends. 

These three activities are best practices with most of my consulting clients, but it’s important for you to evaluate the features and activities you’re spending your time on LinkedIn each week and make sure they’re giving you the results you desire.

If you’d like to schedule a personal session with me to learn more specific ways to generate results for your company or your career, contact me here.

Download the LinkedIn Success Scorecard (PDF) to see how your LinkedIn efforts measure up.

This article was originally published on Wayne Breitbarth’s PowerFormula.net.