There is tremendous potential available on LinkedIn™ right now, to help your organisation meet targets from a recruitment, reputational, marketing, HR and employer engagement perspective - yet so few organisations in the education sector are aware of, or currently taking advantage of this.
The Problem:
Uniting and harnessing team members' social media engagement to promote your organisation at it's best in a co-ordinated, professional way and finding relevant, useful and inclusive staff CPD which is helpful and actionable and can deliver an immediate impact, to make a difference to your individual team members and your organisation as a whole.
The Answer:
I’ve captured the most important critical factors for your people to change and optimise on their LinkedIn™ profiles, in order to represent your organisation professionally and create a measurable impact - without you having to become a LinkedIn™ expert, hire an expensive trainer or wade through hours of instructional books or materials.
Your Audience:
Your potential students, their parents and guardians, your graduates, alumni, next hires and the media are all on Linkedin™ , monitoring your content, your performance and assessing your points of interest and difference - on a daily basis. LinkedIn™ is now 20 years old and is cited as being responsible for directing over 50% of all social traffic to B2B websites and blogs. Rated as the most trusted social media platform, it makes sense to go beyond simply having a presence - and instead to present your organisation at its finest.
Your hidden competitive advantage lies in uniting your organisation’s talent to bring to light the wealth of academic excellence and critical acclaim you already possess.
The benefits of investing in Professional Profile Mastery™ are manyfold. From a staff development perspective this tax deductible CPD training programme boosts morale and promotes a feeling of belonging, so your people can feel recognised, united and accomplished.
From a practical HR perspective you can use this training to build and empower teams. Post-hiring, sometimes valuable skills and attributes can get overlooked - this process can bring the wealth of talent already existing in your organisation, back to the fore.
HR Managers can use LinkedIn™ for skills mapping, consolidating, recognising and rewarding your talent. Currently, nearly a third of UK business leaders are focused on giving employees the opportunity to move into different roles. Sixty-four percent of HR professionals say internal recruiting is now a top priority and 58% are focused on re-skilling initiatives (LinkedIn™ 2020).
Being able to spot potential for advancement can help plug skills gaps and provide your individual team members with opportunities for growth. Certifications and professional memberships are quickly verifiable and your workforce can easily stay up-to-date with the latest industry news and represent you in specialist groups, whilst taking pride in your organisation's collective accomplishments.
LinkedIn™ is an established professional communications tool. From a marketing perspective your company page will rank higher, your organisation will be found more readily in the algorithm (and via Google searches) and your reputation will be raised, promoted and celebrated. You can use LinkedIn™ to promote your organisation’s values and achievements; share commitments to sustainability, research and investments in the community or advances in your chosen specialisms.
Your employees account for 30% of your total company’s engagement on LinkedIn™ and your people are 14% more likely to share content from you, but without proper instruction and guidance this opportunity can go left unchecked. Instead, your employees could be supporting one another and your organisation (often in their own time), through simple micro-actions which compound to position you as the leading authority in your field.
From a commercial perspective, having your team members - across all departments - optimise their profiles professionally, can help showcase the best of your organisation to the wider world, attracting new students and staff, engaging with industry leaders and employers, perhaps gaining media attention or interest from potential stakeholders and opening the door to new funding streams, collaborative projects and strategic partnerships. You can use this process to develop new learning opportunities, positioning you ready for connecting with alumni, monitoring and reporting on destination data or to boost fundraising or launch social campaigns.
From a cross-college perspective, team members will gain awareness of other departments’ work and successes, boosting camaraderie and fostering a collaborative spirit and supportive culture.
Companies who use eLearning see an 18% boost in employee engagement (The Molly Fletcher Company), whilst 94% of employees say they’d stay at a company longer if it invested in their career development (LinkedIn™).
Professional Profile Mastery™ is easy to implement - your employees can take this practical, step-by-step CPD training remotely or whilst at work, completing the training online and implementing the steps in around one hour. They’ll produce a professional result, using a simple-to-follow process and instantly become discoverable for their academic excellence, whilst supporting your organisation’s aims and objectives.
Self-paced online learning means your employees can learn and implement at a time and speed which is convenient to suit them. Research has found that corporate eLearning is 40-60% less time-consuming than traditional learning.
It also reduces energy consumption by 90% (Growth Engineering) so it’s no wonder that in 2020, 98% of corporations planned on using eLearning (Small Business Trends). This approach is expected to grow by over 250% by 2026 (Business Wire).
You’ll be in good company - nine out of ten companies offer their employees some form of digital learning (LinkedIn™) and it’s embraced by 40% of Fortune 500 companies (Skill Scouter). Companies with training programmes have 218% higher revenue per employee (eLearning Industry) and IBM saved $200 million after switching to eLearning (Shift Learning), whilst Dow Chemicals saved $34 million (research.com). In short, online CPD can be cost effective and efficient because it saves time, is adaptable, improves performance, productivity and it is environmentally friendly.
Not all LinkedIn™ training is the same. Home-grown efforts will only take you so far. Simple actions such as adding a professional photo, listing your current position and adding relevant skills will help make your teams’ individual profiles stand out, but it’s not enough.
These days with LinkedIn™’s ability to recognise boolean operators in advanced search criteria, you’ll need a professionally optimised profile to return better results.
To have your individual profile made over or optimised professionally can cost anywhere from £200 to £750 and beyond. An hour’s staff training in person for only a handful of participants can prove expensive. In comparison, this online training is affordable, accessible and inclusive and ready for your teams to take at a place, pace and time convenient to their (and your) needs.
Overall, by investing in Professional Profile Mastery™ for your employees, you’ll elevate your organisation’s presence on a trusted platform with 61 million senior-level influencers and 65 million decision makers. You’ll be amongst the action-takers: four out of five LinkedIn™ members drive business decisions in some form. Out of the one billion users in more than 200 countries and territories worldwide, 45% of content readers are managers, CEOs, VPs or other upper ranks.
Your people are at the top of their game so it makes sense to mix in likeminded circles and join the high flyers. Over 50 million students and recent graduates are on LinkedIn™ and there are over 90,000 schools listed, making this a premium space to connect with stakeholder audiences and present your organisation in the very best light.
With the right company-wide approach, you can open the door to forging new strategic alliances, access funding grants, hear about bids and collaborate on new projects, whilst celebrating staff’s progress and accomplishments. You’ll be highlighting your achievements, honours, acclaims and accolades so you can strongly position your organisation as a provider of choice and substance.
To find out more and book training for your organisation please contact us today.
