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LinkedIn now has more than 1.3 billion members by its own count. That includes millions in senior roles and C-level executives, according to a recent report from Search Engine Journal, “making it a hot spot for those aiming to connect with folks who have the power to hire your company, stock your product, or partner with your brand.”

I’ve personally used LinkedIn for years and have built up a large number of followers. The platform has helped me grow my business, find prospects, connect with potential employees, and create new relationships.

But, like many small-business owners, I could be doing more to increase my engagement and meet more people. Here are a few thoughts from local experts on how to maximize LinkedIn’s potential.

Engage thoughtfully

As with most social media sites, succeeding on LinkedIn is all about engagement. Just using the platform as a billboard for your product or services isn’t going to cut it. A LinkedIn relationship will grow when information is shared and conversation is open.

Kevin Homer, president of Navitas Marketing in Trooper, recommends taking the time to interact with other LinkedIn users’ content and leaving thoughtful comments.

“When you create real dialogue, LinkedIn expands your reach and strengthens your relationships,” he said.

“Fostering conversations is the most important thing,” said Courtney Thomas, who specializes in social media at locally based communications agency Aloysius Butler & Clark.

“If you’re regularly commenting — whether on your own posts or on other people’s or company pages’ posts — you’ll see your engagement rise,” Thomas said. “LinkedIn rewards people who participate, not just those who publish.”

Be authentic

Sometimes people treat LinkedIn like a vehicle to trumpet their personal and professional accomplishments. Experts warn that treating the platform in this manner can hurt your credibility and create the risk of public ridicule, which is not a good strategy for professional growth.

It’s important to treat this platform for what it’s meant to be — a business networking site. Be professional. Be real. Be humble, and don’t be a fake.

Nick Quirk, chief operating offer at digital marketing agency SEO Locale in Montgomeryville, says LinkedIn users should not “just broadcast information” but instead invite discussion.

“Engagement is a two-way street, and growth happens when you stop trying to sell and start trying to connect,” he said. “People don’t come to LinkedIn to be pitched — they come to learn and relate.”

If you’re not posting content people actually want to engage with, your engagement will tank, Thomas said.

“People can tell immediately when something is too salesy or reads as fake,” she said. “LinkedIn isn’t the place for constant promotion; it’s where you establish credibility, demonstrate expertise, and build relationships.”

Be consistent

What you get out of LinkedIn will depend on what you put into it. You can’t just post something once in a while or appear and then disappear for significant lengths of time. This is a community, and you’re expected to be involved.

“Both the algorithm and your audience reward consistency,” Quirk said, so you can’t build a following by just posting once a month.

Homer suggests posting at least once a week, which “creates more opportunities for engagement.”

“Helpful content that shows up regularly trains your audience to expect value from you, and engagement on those posts leads to even more visibility,” Homer said.

Use LinkedIn tools, but don’t go overboard

LinkedIn provides many tools for its users to accumulate more followers and spread awareness. These include video images, articles, and labels to optimize your profile, enormous amounts of online content for skill development, as well as functionality to help you create automatic replies and messaging, referrals, recommendations, and endorsements that will get you noticed and help to bolster your credibility.

The platform is a popular place to recruit talent and, with its Sales Navigator add-in, find and then nurture leads.

“Take advantage of everything LinkedIn lets you do,” Thomas said. ”Long-form articles, PDFs, videos, polls — there are so many features people ignore. The platform prioritizes content that keeps users engaged on LinkedIn instead of sending them elsewhere.”

Adding images and video to posts significantly enhances them and helps boost visibility, Homer noted.

“Think about keywords and hashtags the same way you would SEO on your website,” he said. “LinkedIn search works similarly.”

These capabilities are helpful, but it’s important not to be robotic. For example, Quirk’s biggest pet peeve is when someone sends a connection request and then follow it with an instant, multi-paragraph sales message.

“It’s spammy, disrespectful of time, and burns bridges,” he said. “Always personalize connection requests. Once they accept, you’ve earned a follower, not a lead.”

Homer says it is a “major mistake” to ignore replies and rely on automatic LinkedIn messages.

“Nothing turns people off faster than connecting and immediately receiving a generic sales pitch,” he said. “Real relationships require real conversations.”

LinkedIn is a great place to start and build relationships that could lead to new business or profitable partnerships. In my experience, people who use it every day to both get and share knowledge, without doing a hard sell, are the most successful.

“The businesses that get the most value out of LinkedIn understand that it’s a long game,” Thomas said. ”When you focus on contributing meaningfully instead of selling aggressively, you build an audience that actually wants to hear from you, and that’s far more valuable.”