The term ‘influencer’ has witnessed a meteoric rise in the past couple of years. There are a massive number of users who have joined this ever-growing influencer tribe. While Facebook, Instagram or Snapchat are witnessing people becoming full-time influencers, LinkedIn is also in the race — but on a different lane.

LinkedIn is, without doubt, the best platform when it comes to building a professional network. On a daily basis, more than 2 million posts, videos and articles course through the LinkedIn feed. Also, it generates tens of thousands of comments every hour, and tens of millions of shares and likes. And over the past few years, the platform has also witnessed some personalities making a great impact on different niches, delivering real value.

So why not to become a LinkedIn influencer? What’s wrong in sharing your knowledge and thoughts extensively to a global audience? It would give you real credibility after all. While there are a lot of monetary as well as other benefits in becoming a social media influencer, LinkedIn influencers also have their own set of benefits that are different than the rest.

An official LinkedIn Influencer is selected by invitation only and comprises a global collective of 500+ of the world’s foremost thinkers, leaders, and innovators who discuss newsy and trending topics. This tag of ‘Influencer’ completely changes your status.

In this article, we are going to look at some of the effective ways that would take you closer to becoming a LinkedIn Influencer — if not officially, but at least to an extent where you would be known by a huge, significant amount of people.

Here Is How You Can Start Your LinkedIn Influencer Journey.

Find Your Niche In Data Science

It is really important to know what you are good at — what is your forte. Data science is a vast field and you have to narrow things down to make a spot for yourself. The data science domain has evolved so tremendously that type “Data Science” on LinkedIn and see the results. Therefore, make sure you do the self-assessment and understand what you are good at. Simply put, you have to be a subject matter expert of your clearly defined niche.

Also, once you figure out your niche and if in case you feel that it’s too obscure or too unique, then always remember that your uniqueness is your advantage. 

Have Complete Knowledge

One doesn’t become a ‘Guru’ by just calling oneself that, you have to have the know-how of the things you’re talking about. Becoming a LinkedIn Influencer doesn’t mean you will only share your thoughts, you will have to help people looking for a solution to their complex problems.

Data science today is the backbone of many industries. It provides a lot of intelligence about consumers and campaigns, through techniques like data mining and data analysis. Therefore, make sure you know everything about your niche — whether its programming or other tasks.

If you lack knowledge, then I am afraid you won’t be able to thrive — not only as an influencer but as a data science professional as well.

Use Hashtags

When you are tagged as a LinkedIn influencer you have to produce content that people can use to get their queries answered, get solutions to their problems etc. The content could be in the form of a video or article or just a post with few lines; however, there is one thing that you have to consider in order to make your content visible to the audience. How would you do that? By using hashtags.

Instagram and Facebook have always been popular platforms that have witnessed the evolution of hashtags. But now LinkedIn has joined the list as well. There was a time hashtag were only added to posts but now they are tappable and lead to search results so that people can discover other content with the same hashtag.

Hashtags on linked work the same way as Twitter and LinkedIn — they categorise the content. Therefore, make sure you add hashtags to your content — that are relevant to data science. Hashtags not only help you get discovered by other users but also help your content get noticed by those who are not connected to you.

Talking about hashtags let’s look at another aspect of it — adding hashtags on your profile. This strategy works for Instagram, but for LinkedIn, its little different. It is effective, but not as effective as posts. Still, make sure you have relevant hashtags on your profile as well, because soon this will also become relevant.

Engage With Your Connections

One of the most important things to getting closer to becoming a LinkedIn influencer is to engage with your connection as well as with people who are not connected to you. Every time you post a blog, make sure you reply to the comments and help them with their query. Also, reply to messages you get; it might get a little hard to get back to each and everyone when you have comparably a big audience, but make sure you reply to the one who genuinely needs to get something resolved.

The more you connect and talk to people, the more your chances of becoming a LinkedIn influencer increases. This is actually networking.

Moreover, when we are saying talk to as many people as possible, we also mean the ones who are not your connection. So, how would you do that? The best way again is to take the help of hashtags. Pick a hashtag (it could be one of the topics that interests you) and search for it, look for all the content in the results, click that one that interests you the most and there you can comment your thoughts, or you can even reply to people.

When you are searching for a hashtag, it would also pop some profiles to you. So, you are interested in sending some connection requests you can do that as well.

Content Is King

When it comes to making an impact on LinkedIn, where most of the professionals hang out, your content has to be stronger than most of the other ‘Gurus’ in the niche. Talking about content, it’s not about writing each and everything about your data science niche, you have to make sure that you are pushing out content that makes sense and people want to read.

You can always experiment with different strategies to come with the next viral content. One of the best ways is to ask your connections about their problems and challenges they are facing with the data science. And try to solve their problems in your upcoming blog post. Or how about doing a video for the same problem? Its all about figuring out that ultimate content that stands out. Also, keep in mind, do not do what others are doing. Uniqueness is the key to get that desired audience base.

Influencers To Learn From

While you are getting started with your journey to becoming a LinkedIn influencer, follow some of the well-known influencers and watch carefully their activities in the platform on a day to day basis. One of the best examples is Nicholas Thompson, Editor in Chief at Wired. Thompson in his daily video series breaks down and shares the industry news/stories he finds most interesting and important. He makes sure that his information is not half-cooked, and the topics he talks about are always relevant to the crowd he caters to.

Another personality is Gary Vaynerchuk, Chairman, VaynerX & CEO, VaynerMedia. Vaynerchuk’s content ranges from marketing issues to workplace topics, like dealing with stress. His content is also considered to one of the best for people who are starting out with their own venture.