Well into week two after coming back to work!   I am not sure if it is any easier and we are now over half way into January – is it me or is time speeding up?

Thinking about my own Continuing Professional Development (CPD) I attended a really useful session today presented by Richard Maybury entitled “Leveraging LinkedIn”.  I was expecting it to be quite practical and was delighted with Richard’s strategic approach.  His presentation was lively, challenged his audience and totally engaged us.

The first point was to establish your purpose for being on LinkedIn by asking yourself the key question what am I here for?” this for want of a better way of putting it gives you the business case for spending time on LinkedIn.

The second point was to again ask another question “what is our strategy?” the issue here is about linking it to other marketing initiatives and to identify what your USP is – USP in this case is Unique Strategic Positioning.

Another interesting idea was about Polishing up your Profile, Richard recommends that you take time to consider the headline you use.  So, instead of putting your job title put in a key strength or interest.

I have come away with five new ideas about our use of LinkedIn so well worth the time and energy spent.

I am still amazed at our difficulty in finding the time for ourselves.  If you think about it we need to invest in ourselves for the future and for our own professional credibility.  If we can’t invest in ourselves how can we expect our organisations to invest in us?

This could be an entry on to your CPD Plan for 2015.   You can download a new plan and record here!