Many recruiters renew LinkedIn licences without optimising how they're being used by the team. In order to sweat your tech through the platform, you need to make use of your personal brand.
04 March 2025
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In order to properly sweat your tech stack and marketing, you should make use of the only free tool available on LinkedIn: your personal brand.
What do we mean by that? Put simply, learn to define, build and amplify your personal brand to help you maximise the benefits of LinkedIn. By creating a unique identity (your competitive advantage) and maintaining a consistent presence that resonates with your target audience, you will start to set yourself apart as the go-to in your industry.
Why is this useful?
Where do we start? Increased credibility within the sector? Yes please. More people coming to you? Yes please. Less resistance at conversion? Yes please. Not only does it put you in front of more prospects, it makes the chances of converting business significantly higher. It’s a strategy that consistently works- providing you’re consistent - think about prominent figures like Stephen Bartlett and Dave Gerhardt, who’ve had explosive LinkedIn success.
LinkedIn offers various licences to help recruiters get the most out of its features. However, these licences aren't free. While some agencies are more ‘tactful’ in how they distribute licences, the main issue arises from not knowing how to get the best return from these tools, whether it’s Sales Nav, Recruiter, or simply Premium. You shouldn’t just break even on this cost - you should be excelling.
Unfortunately, there’s a lot of recruiters out there who don’t get the return from their LinkedIn licences that they are expecting. This is either because they’re not using it to its full advantage or it doesn’t quite work for their business - in most cases, it’s the former.
As with any strategy, it should be mapped out and aligned with clear objectives, measurable goals, and actionable steps to ensure successful execution. But many overlook this when it comes to LinkedIn, sadly becoming complacent and reliant on this tool. While there are many aspects to review, from licence usage and disciplined data capture to CRM updates and internal processes, one of the biggest aspects in leveraging your personal brand is the ability to bill more.
LinkedIn is the ideal platform for building and showcasing your personal brand. It enables direct connections with your target audience, allowing you to craft messages that resonate with their needs. Not only do clients and candidates view you as an expert in your field, but they will approach you as well.
In the digital world, there’s an overwhelming amount of information, making it hard to know who to trust. As a professional network, LinkedIn allows you to communicate who you are, what you know and what you stand for. This is where personal branding really holds its own. If you can convey this and use it to generate value for others in your network, then you’re only going to succeed.
It’s not just about the individual though. At Branded by Aquila, we love what we call “internal advocates”. These are employees who actively engage with and share company content, which supports the company’s larger marketing and recruitment strategies by amplifying the reach of a business’s online presence. These advocates should be celebrated and encouraged.
If you consider that a company’s page will have a certain number of followers (around 3,000, say), prominent personal brands will have a following that far exceeds this. Think about individuals like Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg. They’ll have more of a following than their own company pages - people want to hear what these individuals have to say.
Back in the recruitment world, employees will have anything from 500–1,000 followers on average, so engaging with company content will push this out to a much wider audience. The average recruitment firm has fewer than 10 employees, so if they all engage with the company’s content, this has the potential to amplify the reach to 9,000 additional pairs of eyes, rather than the company’s 3,000.
In order to get the most out of a LinkedIn licence, you need to be active on LinkedIn. This means pushing your personal brand and engaging with both the company and the wider community. Instead of giving all recruiters an expensive piece of tech and expecting them to add it to their processes, give it to those who want to put the effort in, having already demonstrated ‘internal advocate’ behaviours.
We’ve previously suggested rewarding internal advocates who have already gone the extra mile or demonstrated the value of building their network by giving them their own LinkedIn licence as part of an internal incentive. Other advantages include when one person masters licence efficiency, they can help others as and when licences are rolled out, maximising the speed to return on investment. This makes the cost of LinkedIn licences worthwhile rather than just a necessary expense.
As LinkedIn licences become more expensive, with no signs of slowing down, it’s crucial to match this growing expense with the value of personal branding. A strong personal brand on LinkedIn enables recruiters to connect to a more receptive audience as it positions them as a trusted voice in their field. This will allow them to get the best results from LinkedIn, not merely breaking even from the price of the licence, but excelling.
And it’s a two-way win. Not only is investing in personal branding an obvious win for recruitment firms, but it empowers recruiters with greater visibility and career growth. You’ll have a more engaged and motivated team.
Here are some actionable steps to ensure you're squeezing the most out of your LinkedIn tech stack and personal branding efforts:
As long as you’re leveraging your personal brand effectively, you’ll be able to sweat LinkedIn for all you can. With more business and a better ROI, you won’t have to worry about covering the cost of these licences again.
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