As a university academic, engaging with the biotech industry can be crucial for advancing your research and securing funding and partnerships. LinkedIn provides a valuable platform for making connections and promoting your work to industry stakeholders.
Five top tips for maximising your visibility and reach on LinkedIn:
- Build a professional profile: Much like your own profile page on your institution’s website, your LinkedIn profile represents your professional identity. It’s essential to create an accurate, up-to-date, and professional-looking profile that showcases your skills, expertise, and achievements. The key advantage of using LinkedIn is that you have full control over what you post and when, and it tends to rank highly on Google. So along with its myriad of baked-in features, LinkedIn provides a high-quality and easy-to-find alternative to both your institutional website profile and your own personal academic website.
- Connect with industry scientists and leaders: LinkedIn provides an opportunity to connect with key players in the biotech industry, including industry leaders, research programme teams, executives, and decision-makers. This can help build valuable relationships and open doors for future research and teaching collaborations, in addition to opportunities for developing industry-funded PhD studentships. Given LinkedIn is the place for professional networking, it’s much more likely that you’ll find biotech industry professionals here rather than Twitter, or even Facebook.
- Share your research: LinkedIn is a valuable space for sharing and discussing your research findings and news from your field. This can help you increase your visibility and build your reputation as an expert in your area of study.
- Join industry LinkedIn groups: LinkedIn has a wealth of special interest groups where members can connect, share insights, and engage in discussions. Both university and industry-based academics can join these groups and discuss the latest developments in their sector, build relationships, and stay informed about the latest industry trends and developments.
- Promote your wider university: Your LinkedIn profile is an opportunity to promote your university, its research initiatives and its executive or professional training programmes. By showcasing the cutting-edge research, innovation and training taking place at your institution, you can increase its visibility and position it as a top choice for partnerships and collaborations.
Many universities and research institutions have their own presence on LinkedIn. Yet it’s fair to say that the highest-quality engagement comes from people rather than brands, so use the opportunity to champion your institution and leverage your research to advance both your own profile and your institution’s reach with industry stakeholders.
Transitioning from Twitter?
If you’re looking to divert some of your time away from micro-blogging platforms like Twitter or Mastodon, LinkedIn is certainly worth considering for many of the reasons above. But be mindful that it takes time and effort to build a following when you first join a social media platform, particularly if you’re used to instant responses and a flutter of activity every time you post.
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