Patient Advocacy: How To Boost Your Visibility on LinkedIn
In my previous post, I shared with you tips to optimize your LinkedIn profile. Recall that I recommended LinkedIn as the best social network for enhancing your professional online presence and showcasing your advocacy activities.
If you have put into practice the tips from last month, you should now have a professional-looking profile. So let’s discuss ways you can make your profile more visible on the site.
In essence, you must appear more frequently on LinkedIn, share engaging content, and engage consistently to increase your visibility.
The following are my top recommendations for increasing your activity and visibility on the platform through a daily engagement routine.
1. Share a Daily Status Update
Keep active and visible by posting a status update daily and engaging with your connections’ posts and articles in your newsfeed. LinkedIn encourages users to use specific hashtags in their posts and searches. It’s important to find hashtags relevant to your followers’ interests before you start adding them to your LinkedIn posts. It’s a good idea to observe what hashtags others in your advocacy area use on LinkedIn, as well as on other social media platforms such as Twitter and Instagram.
2. Share A Video
With LinkedIn native video, you can record a video inside the app or upload a pre-made video from your camera roll. This feature is available only on mobile, so download or update the app to make sure you have the latest version.
Tip: Go Live. In the short-term, native video on LinkedIn is still a novelty and presents an opportunity for you to stand out. With live video, you can broadcast content directly to your profile, so you can interact with your audience in real-time, drive deeper engagement, and establish your thought leadership. You will need to switch on Creator mode to be able to record live video. Here’s how to do this
3. Mention People in Your Posts
Mentioning a connection encourages engagement with your posts and comments. To mention someone in a post: Type “@” and then begin typing a name in the box.
4. Engage With Comments
Pay attention to everyone who takes the time to leave a comment on something that you post. Each time someone likes or comments on your post, their network can see it, thereby increasing the visibility of your post. When people are liking, sharing, and commenting on your posts, this acts as “social proof” to your network and beyond.
5. Nurture Relationships
Nurture your LinkedIn relationships through regular engagement. LinkedIn will notify you of trigger events (such as when one of your connections starts a new job). Take a moment to reach out to them with a personalized message of support.
6. Participate In LinkedIn Groups
Join groups on LinkedIn and start a conversation or comment on what is posted there. You will find groups by clicking on Interests > Groups from your profile or searching keywords to identify groups with interests similar to yours.
7. What You Share Matters
What you post on LinkedIn will establish you as a credible authority in your field. The key is to share relevant news, articles, and insights with your connections. Consider the type of content that will be most useful to your followers. As a thought leader, your goal is to consistently share your unique perspective on the most important industry topics.
8. Post Content At Optimal Times
Finally, be strategic about when you post. As a general rule, LinkedIn users are most active right before and after work (7-8 am and 5-6 pm), as well as during lunchtime. Experiment for yourself. Post at different times and take note of which times your particular audience is most engaged with you.

A Stanford Medicine X e-Patient scholar, Marie Ennis O’Connor is an internationally recognized keynote speaker, writer, and consultant on global trends in patient engagement, digital health and participatory medicine. Marie’s work is informed by her passion for embedding the patient voice at the heart of healthcare values. She writes about the experience of transitioning from breast cancer patient to advocate on her award-winning blog Journeying Beyond Breast Cancer.