LinkedIn can feel like a complicated place. I felt so overwhelmed and confused when I first started to use it, and I know that many real estate agents feel the same way.

I absolutely dragged my feet about spending more time on LinkedIn. I felt like I should be there for my career, but I didn’t really want to be there.

My friend and colleague Tacoma Real Estate Agent Marguerite Martin and I have talked a lot about LinkedIn over the years, and our thoughts about the platform have evolved. We’ve come to see the value in LinkedIn. And at the most recent Social Media Marketing World conference I attended, people were super interested about the platform, and there were some great info-packed sessions about it.

“There’s no one on this planet who loathed LinkedIn more than me, and now I love it. I’ve come to understand that having a professional presence on LinkedIn (that is updated!) is the bare minimum we need to do to show clients researching us that we’re a professional. It’s been a great way to stay in touch with professional connections and past clients and stay updated about what’s happening in their lives on a professional level. It’s also a great way to keep up with agents outside of my market that I refer business to.” - Tacoma Real Estate Agent Marguerite Martin

Marguerite and I leading a real estate team retreat in Palm Springs. Of course, we talked about LinkedIn!

Now we encourage our clients who are real estate agents to make LinkedIn a part of their marketing plan. Marguerite even teaches a class to real estate brokerages called “LinkedIn for Real Estate Agents.” (The class is fantastic, btw.)

My Own Challenges with LinkedIn

Even though overall I’m sold on it, I still have some issues with LinkedIn. Sometimes it feels so noisy over there. There are so many ads. It’s annoying and clutters up the page. But I am also using LinkedIn for free (there’s a paid versions but I don’t use it), so I guess that’s the price I pay.

When I first started being intentional on LinkedIn, it felt like there weren’t enough people I knew in my newsfeed. Who were all of these people and why exactly was I seeing their posts? This still happens, and sometimes it’s a good thing—I generally like seeing what’s going on with professionals outside of my bubble.

Then there is the posting issue. Where do I even create a new post? Do I format things like Facebook? Can I directly upload a video or should I use a Youtube link? And how are people making those beautiful sliders?! (Turns out, they’re PDFs uploaded to LinkedIn. Who would have guessed!)

Needless to say, learning another platform can be tiring!

How I Took Baby Steps & Eased Into Using LinkedIn

Once I saw the value in LinkedIn, I knew it would be worth it to figure it out. I’m going to share what I did to get more comfortable on LinkedIn in the hopes that it helps you, too. These are just the basics, but it is more than enough when you’re beginning your LinkedIn journey.

Connect with people you know.

LinkedIn is much better when your connections are also there. Actively seek out people you know; type their name into the Search bar to find them. LinkedIn will also suggest new connections to you at every turn. But you can also click on “My Network” in the menu and find a whole page of suggested connections.

Engage with others’ content.

“Agents underestimate how much of what they need to be doing on LinkedIn is actually NOT about posting,” shares Marguerite. “Liking people in your network’s posts, commenting thoughtfully on their work, and even direct messaging them is probably 100x more important than what you decide to post.”

She is completely right. Be sure to engage with posts from people you know, so you train the algorithm to show you their posts more often (so you can engage with them more, etc.!. Also, share relevant posts from your connections in your own feed (with your own caption when you share). All of these actions are not only a great way to support people in your network, but it also exposes your account to other connections, AND helps their content find you in LinkedIn’s algorithm.

Download the LinkedIn app to your phone.

It wasn’t very often that I would open LinkedIn on my desktop; I just wasn’t in the habit of it. So when I decided I wanted to use LinkedIn more often, I downloaded the app to my phone and made sure it was on my Home Screen. This worked, and I check out what my friends and colleagues are up to professionally way more often now.

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Like Marguerite said, you don’t even have to create original posts on LinkedIn to have success there. That being said though, LinkedIn is hungry for content. It doesn’t have to just be “stuffy” professional content, either. What to post on LinkedIn is a topic for a different day, but the more time you spend there, the more you’ll get a sense for what other people post and where there might be some opportunities.

If you have a question about LinkedIn, I encourage you to schedule a coaching session with Marguerite or get your brokerage to bring her in to teach her class “LinkedIn for Real Estate Agents.”