LinkedIn is a fantastic tool that graphic designers can use to build their network, share work, and find educational content. It’s different than other social media platforms and you’ll need to put a little more effort into curating the content that shows up in your feed. Engagement is overall more low key on LinkedIn as well so you won’t be getting instantaneous likes and comments on your posts.
Here are 3 tips for getting the most out of LinkedIn as a graphic designer:
Find and follow design agencies, freelancers, and others who inspire you or who you may want to work for
Sure, you could follow these people on Behance or Instagram, but when you follow them on LinkedIn, you’ll get a glimpse into how they position themselves to their clients, and this can help you learn how to better position yourself to your own potential clients. Pay attention to how people on LinkedIn talk about the work they have done. You won’t see much about font selection and color theory, you’ll see designers and agencies talking about the results they achieved with their design work.
Check LinkedIn every day and engage with something/someone.
I’ve talked to too many designers who can’t remember the last time they logged into their LinkedIn account. Get into the habit of checking LinkedIn regularly. Like or comment on something in your feed. When you do that, your action is shared with your network, making you visible to your connections who may have forgotten you exist. When you comment on someone’s post, you make yourself visible to an even wider network of people.
Make a company page for yourself
LinkedIn lets you set up a free company page and there’s no reason I see not to make one for yourself. I made one for myself as a freelancer and here’s why I think you should too:
- It makes your resume section look more legit.
- It gives you a place to promote your portfolio work or portfolio site.
- You can use it to start building up a personal brand on LinkedIn.
See below: If you were to list yourself as a freelance marketer on your LinkedIn experience section, by default you get a generic icon if there is no associated company page on LinkedIn (see my Marketing Strategist for Patterson Riegel listing). If you make your own company page, you get a chance to visually brand yourself AND you get a page dedicated to your freelance work on LinkedIn. A visitor to your profile can click on your freelance listing and see whatever you want them to see. For my own freelance company page, I simply have a link to my portfolio website. If you want, you can add posts that highlight your work and then you can share those posts with your own personal network. It makes you look a little more legit, especially if you have limited design jobs to list.
LinkedIn is vastly under-utilized by graphic designers and those who do have profiles are generally not using them for much more than a place to post an online resume. With just a little effort, you can stand out on LinkedIn and use the platform to your advantage.
