LinkedIn used to be a space where you copy/pasted your resume.

It is now a space to be more than your job…if you give yourself the permission to do so.

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This past week, I had a long conversation about LinkedIn with a woman. We’ll call her Anna.

Anna works a corporate job, but is trying to grow her health coaching business on the side. She showed me all these amazing resources she created, and said she wanted to get them in front of more people on LinkedIn. Not in a salesy way, but to act on her mission of helping people take control of their health.

I pulled up her profile and while she had made a few posts about health coaching, her profile didn’t really tell me that she wanted to connect with people on health coaching.

Like a lot of us, Anna’s LinkedIn reflected her “corporate self.”

But what happens when we decide to be more than our corporate job?
What happens when we want to connect with people on other topics?
When we want to be the corporate employee AND the person outside of work with deep passions and interests?

It can be scary to have non-work conversations on LinkedIn though, right?!

If you’re only connected with people you’ve met in the corporate world and therefore your feed is filled with only new job announcements and promotions, it can be hard to give ourselves the permission to start conversations about other topics.

But when we start conversations about what we are interested in, it gives us the opportunity to connect and find “our people.”

Anna and I talked about 3 small tweaks she could make to LinkedIn to embrace being a corporate employee AND connecting with people on her passion of health coaching.

1) Change your bio to include your hobby, side business, interest, or another hat you wear

Changing your bio (below your name) communicates to people who you’re and what you’re up to.

A coach, writer, volunteer, boy mom, dog mom, business owner. You can include your corporate job and these other hats.

This doesn’t have to be a grand declaration.

Think of it as a conversation starter and connection point.

Pro tip: if your goal right now is to grow in your corporate job, list that 1st in the bio. If your goal right now is to connect with people on other topics, list those 1st.

Reason being - when you comment on someone’s post, you can only see the 1st part of your bio, so be intentional about what is shown.

2) Use Canva to make a banner photo that reflects you

Have fun with this one!

The LinkedIn banner is the 1st impression on your profile and fun way to communicate who you’re and what you’re up to!

Bright colors? Moody colors? Include your corporate title? Or maybe the other hats you wear?

Canva has so many LinkedIn banner templates for you to play with, and gives you the opportunity to communicate what types of things you want to connect on.

Pro tip: allow this to evolve as you evolve! This is your space to show your personality and not take LinkedIn too seriously :)

3) Start posting 1x per week

This gets you talking about your interests and helps you figure out what topics drive the most conversation.

Posting 1x per week eases people into your posts without worrying about “being annoying” with posting a lot.

Also, LinkedIn doesn’t show every post to every person so not everyone will see it.

Pro tip: post a picture with it! LinkedIn is 40% more likely to show it if you have a picture, meaning you’re 40% more likely to connect with “your people.” Posting different types of pictures in each post helps keep things fresh.

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If you’re nervous about putting yourself out there on LinkedIn, ask:

“what do I want to have more conversations about?”

Because the online conversations turn into in-real-life conversations, which turns into you finding your people :)