| Pages in topic: [1 2] > | Poll: Has a LinkedIn profile helped you get direct customers? Thread poster: ProZ.com Staff
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This forum topic is for the discussion of the poll question "Has a LinkedIn profile helped you get direct customers?".
View the poll results »
| | | | | I'm not sure | Aug 31, 2022 |
I’m not sure. I know my profile has been visited quite often and I wonder if these potential clients have contacted me directly without mentioning LinkedIn. The truth is I have been thinking of cancelling my membership, though taking part in two groups (Translation Agencies – Good, Bad, and Cheap + Unacceptable Translation Rates Naming and Shaming Group) has been quite useful.
| | | | Martha Schwan 
Brazil
Local time: 15:29
Member
English to Portuguese
+ ...
It never did help me with anything!
The only thing I got from that trash was a lot of unwanted messages!
The time passed and I ended up deleting my profile and I don't regret it.
| | | | Samuel Murray
Netherlands
Local time: 19:29
Member (2006)
English to Afrikaans
+ ...
| No, although | Aug 31, 2022 |
No, although I suspect it had helped making contact with useful other translators, and I believe it may have raised my profile in the records of some agencies. But I generally don't work for direct clients anyway.
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Baran Keki
Türkiye
Local time: 21:29
Member
English to Turkish
But I'm really interested to know if paid membership there (which costs about 30 to 70 USD per month) offers any benefit as far as getting clients. That is to say without having to write, share, like, favorite idiotic or politically correct posts or articles. Can you just pay 500-700 USD and let clients find you? How does it work? Do you really have to share those effing posts/articles?
| | | | Samuel Murray
Netherlands
Local time: 19:29
Member (2006)
English to Afrikaans
+ ...
Baran Keki wrote:
But I'm really interested to know if paid membership there ... offers any benefit as far as getting clients.
There are several "premium" memberships:
https://www.linkedin.com/help/linkedin/answer/a545596/difference-between-free-linkedin-and-premium-linkedin-accounts?lang=en
and they tend to offer different things depending on the role. I get the impression that none of the premium memberships will allow more people to contact *you* but are instead meant to allow you to contact more other people (and e.g. find them more easily). So you still have to do all the work yourself.
I believe the option that we would find most useful would be their "Business" option. It says "Premium Business members get an average of 6X more profile views", if that's of any use to you, although I suspect you'd get more profile views if you make an effort with your profile. As they say, 6 times nothing is nothing. Other benefits of the Business membership include:
...although you'd have to google for what those things actually mean.
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I get a message every month or two. It certainly helps that I am specializing in digital content localization. If you're localizing video games, PC software, mobile apps, websites etc. like me, you'd definitely benefit from having a Linledin profile. But, say, if you're usually working on legal texts, medical texts etc., I guess Linkedin wouldn't be as useful to you.
Baran Keki wrote:
But I'm really interested to know if paid membership there (which costs about 30 to 70 USD per month) offers any benefit as far as getting clients. That is to say without having to write, share, like, favorite idiotic or politically correct posts or articles. Can you just pay 500-700 USD and let clients find you? How does it work? Do you really have to share those effing posts/articles?
For what it's worth, I never paid a single dime to them, and never really engaged in "social" aspects of the site. I never post anything. The most I do is to leave a like when a friend shares a good news or when a connection shares a job opportunity.
I mean, who the hell has time for those wannabe influencers, let alone to be one yourself? I wish I could just nuke the cesspool that is Linkedin homepage lol.
What worked for me, is that I just made a solid effort to create an impressive enough Linkedin profile and then let my profile handle the rest. I forget Linkedin even exists till I get a new message.
TLDR: Linkedin is great if you're in the right industry. Just make an effort to create a nice profile once, and it will passively fetch new clients and recruiters while you're minding your own business. And please, don't use the homepage.
| | | | Kay Denney
France
Local time: 19:29
French to English
Once I set up a LinkedIn profile, I connected with anyone and everyone, colleagues, clients etc. I made a point of connecting with colleagues leaving for new pastures.
Then when I started freelancing I simply contacted them all and many responded. Some four years later.
I have also been contacted by people out of the blue who have since become clients.
I'm pretty amazed that nobody here has had a similar experience, my profile can't be that much better than everyone else's!
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Kay Denney
France
Local time: 19:29
French to English
Baran Keki wrote:
But I'm really interested to know if paid membership there (which costs about 30 to 70 USD per month) offers any benefit as far as getting clients. That is to say without having to write, share, like, favorite idiotic or politically correct posts or articles. Can you just pay 500-700 USD and let clients find you? How does it work? Do you really have to share those effing posts/articles?
I don't have a paid membership, and I never post anything. Hasn't stopped me from getting work there.
| | | | Samuel Murray
Netherlands
Local time: 19:29
Member (2006)
English to Afrikaans
+ ...
| How to make friends on LinkedIn properly | Aug 31, 2022 |
When I started using LinkedIn, I understood the instructions to mean that I should only connect to people that I actually know. For this reason I refused many connection requests in the beginning, because they came from people who e.g. are also on ProZ.com or are also members of a society that I'm a member, but without actually having had any actual dealings with me at all in the past. Some of these requests were from agencies, but likewise, unless I've actually dealt with a person, I rejected ... See more When I started using LinkedIn, I understood the instructions to mean that I should only connect to people that I actually know. For this reason I refused many connection requests in the beginning, because they came from people who e.g. are also on ProZ.com or are also members of a society that I'm a member, but without actually having had any actual dealings with me at all in the past. Some of these requests were from agencies, but likewise, unless I've actually dealt with a person, I rejected their connection request.
These days, I realize that that is no longer how LinkedIn works. When LinkedIn says that so-and-so is a first-level contact of someone, it doesn't say anything about how reliable they are etc. because people just connect to random strangers that have something vaguely related in common with them. This is not a bad thing (because connecting with e.g. lots of other translators raises your "translator" profile in searches), but it's different from how it used to be. ▲ Collapse
| | | | Kay Denney
France
Local time: 19:29
French to English
Samuel Murray wrote:
When I started using LinkedIn, I understood the instructions to mean that I should only connect to people that I actually know. For this reason I refused many connection requests in the beginning, because they came from people who e.g. are also on ProZ.com or are also members of a society that I'm a member, but without actually having had any actual dealings with me at all in the past. Some of these requests were from agencies, but likewise, unless I've actually dealt with a person, I rejected their connection request.
These days, I realize that that is no longer how LinkedIn works. When LinkedIn says that so-and-so is a first-level contact of someone, it doesn't say anything about how reliable they are etc. because people just connect to random strangers that have something vaguely related in common with them. This is not a bad thing (because connecting with e.g. lots of other translators raises your "translator" profile in searches), but it's different from how it used to be.
I have only ever connected with people I've actually worked with. Sometimes clients will ask me if I know a translator with a different language pair, and I will look through my contacts to find someone. Since I don't necessarily remember people's names, I don't want to end up recommending somebody I don't even know.
Some translators have tried to connect with me, and I have refused because I remembered they did a bad job for me at the agency. So in fact, being in my list of contacts is a kind of recommendation in itself.
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There have been some people contacting me through LinkedIn, but they never offered anything interesting. And mostly very low rates.
I have thought of cancelling my account, but for now it lives its own useless life.
I get a lot more work via ProzCom.
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Baran Keki
Türkiye
Local time: 21:29
Member
English to Turkish
| Good for you | Aug 31, 2022 |
Kay Denney wrote:
I don't have a paid membership, and I never post anything. Hasn't stopped me from getting work there.
I remember you mention this multiple times. Could it be that you've been just lucky? I know that some people are averse to the idea of 'explaining success with luck', but in my experience luck accounts for a great deal. For example, I found a client from the 'hated' Proz job board some years ago which ended up earning me over $20k. Can I defend the Proz job board off the back of that?
| | | | Chié_JP
Japan
Local time: 03:29
Member (2013)
English to Japanese
+ ...
Several US customers who contacted via ProZ asked to submit LinedIn profile. They believe that ProZ personal profile is less credible compared to LinkedIn. I have no comments about it so far.
| | | | neilmac
Spain
Local time: 19:29
Spanish to English
+ ...
Although I am on LinkedIn, I find it irritating. They send me e-mails but after clicking on the link they expect me to enter passwords, which I find tremendously annoying.
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