How to make money on LinkedIn

LinkedIn is the largest professional network in the world. You can use it to find the right job or internship, connect with other professionals, and also learn the skills you need to succeed in your career. As of the moment of writing this, LinkedIn has 830 million users. In this article, we will highlight the top ways to make money on LinkedIn.

Optimize your LinkedIn account for monetization

The first thing to do is to prepare your LinkedIn account for monetization. Here are a few things to watch out for and address.

1. Complete your LinkedIn profile

A LinkedIn profile is very voluminous, at least when compared to the likes of Facebook, Twitter, and many other social media platforms. There are just so many sections to fill out and constantly update on LinkedIn.

A complete LinkedIn profile can help you connect with opportunities by showcasing your unique professional story through experience, skills, and education.

2. Your LinkedIn account should resemble the type of work you want to do

The way you dress is the way you’ll be addressed. The same goes for every LinkedIn account out there. Your LinkedIn profile should not look like it’s suffering or like it would accept any job.

• Upload a professional picture
• Your “About” should make sense
• Add all your work experiences and write a short note on each of them
• Get a resume. It tells people what you’ve done
• Get a portfolio. It proves to people what you’ve done

3. Form relationships

Getting hired by a recruiter, selling digital items, hosting paid training or whichever way you want to make money on LinkedIn, you’ll still need people. And the more people you can get/reach on LinkedIn, the more advantage you have.

If you’re someone that wants privacy, silent notifications and a neat inbox, then LinkedIn is not for you. At least not for making money.

To make money on LinkedIn, you must connect with every potential person you can find. Note that I used the word “potential”, which means you must have a reason for connecting and each person must have the potential to be useful for your goal, one way or the other.

Connect with thought leaders, business owners, entrepreneurs, contributors and other popular people in your industry. Also, stop ignoring emails and notifications inviting you to connect.

Enough talk for now. Let’s get to the real business of making money on LinkedIn. Having prepared your account for monetization, here are the top ways to make money on LinkedIn.

How to make money on LinkedIn

Here are ways you can, directly and indirectly, make money on LinkedIn:

1. Get hired by a recruiter on LinkedIn and land your dream job

This is the most straightforward way anyone can make money with LinkedIn. It’s very simple. Apply for a job posting, meet the requirements, submit your resume, get invited for an interview, get selected, get employed, and boom! You have a fixed and reliable source of monthly income.

While this may not be your only way of making money with LinkedIn, it’s one of the most straightforward ways, especially if you’re a fan of 9 – 5 jobs. Also, if you don’t have a business and you desire to pursue a career in a particular field, then getting employed on LinkedIn will be among the best choices for you.

2. Create a salable product and market it on LinkedIn

One of the easiest ways to make money on LinkedIn is to create and sell your own products. It can be physical as well as digital products. Either way, it should be something that will generate significant profit on each sale.

If you’re on LinkedIn as a brand, you can also sell products related directly to your business. You can sell hard copy books, ebooks, PDFs, tickets to an online mastery class, and lots more.

And remember to always prompt your customers to write a review and recommendation for your product. 

3. Offer consulting services

If you have experience and expertise in a particular field, you can offer consulting services to other users in exchange for payment. A lot of business owners and entrepreneurs pay good money to listen to consultants about what they’ve learned.

Note that you will have to amass a large number of connections before you can turn this into a reliable source of monthly income. Also, make sure you’re very good at it before starting. You don’t want to run other people out of business, do you?

4. Affiliate marketing and promotions

Generally, affiliate marketing is a good way to make money without having any product of your own. Affiliate marketing involves also advertising and promoting the products of another brand, business or company.

The amount of money you’ll earn will depend on the number of sales that comes from your end. 

5. LinkedIn advertising

Are you a social media advertising expert? You can help people to run PPC and social media ads on LinkedIn. LinkedIn uses objective-based advertising, which helps advertisers build ad campaigns around specific business goals.

Many small and medium-sized businesses out there are usually busy and don’t have enough staff, time, and expertise to launch and monitor ad campaigns. Approach them, become their ad account manager, and receive your pay at intervals.

6. Offer digital marketing services

Digital marketing is one of the best ways to make money on LinkedIn. You can provide digital marketing services to clients in exchange for payment.

If you’re a freelancer or an agency that specializes in content writing, search engine optimization, copywriting, email marketing, social media marketing, PPC advertising, and digital marketing services in general, you can get hired by individuals and companies on LinkedIn.

Optimize your LinkedIn profile so that you will be highly visible to people searching for your services. You should also add skills to your profile and ask other professionals (and your past/existing clients)  to give you endorsements.

If you’re a digital marketing brand, you should also create a LinkedIn company page. Create listings for each of your services and fully utilize features like banner images, video testimonials, and the like.

Conclusion

While the idea of making money on LinkedIn sounds exciting, you should note that Rome was not built in a day. Your journey on how to make money on LinkedIn may be challenging, depending on the number of professionals already recognized in your industry.

But with the right expertise, experience and time, you will become established and start making good money. One last tip: Always update your LinkedIn profile.