Guest Blog By Carol Stewart, Executive and Career Coach

Whether you want a promotion or to increase your influence and impact, raising your profile and being visible is essential. But doing this virtually when you’re new to working from home is a challenge for many who haven’t had to do it this way before.

You don’t get the same opportunities to be visible like you do in the face-to-face environment, so you’ll need to make good use of the virtual space. If you’re new to working from here’s what you can do to raise your visibility.

Create your visibility strategy

Visibility is good for raising your profile and showcasing your credibility and expertise. If you want to go for promotion, it helps you to come under the radar of decision makers who may ordinarily not get to know about you. 

Employees who have visible and approachable leaders are more likely to be engaged and feel a connection to the organisation. When employees are engaged, they are more motivated, more productive, and generally more motivated. This results in staff retention, reduced absenteeism, plus, happy employees tend to make for happy customers. Visibility also helps with stakeholder engagement and helps to build influence and trust.

There are many benefits to be gained from being visible so think about what you want to gain from it. You don’t just want to be visible for the sake of it. Be intentional about it and develop a strategy for it.

What do you want to be known for?

Identify the area of expertise that you want to be known for. In order to have a point of differentiation and stand out from the crowd, businesses have a niche. This is a particular, narrower focus that they hone in on and become the go to person in their field for it.

The same can apply to you in your career. Whether you work in a specialist field, or you are a generalist, becoming known as a person of influence for your particular niche will help you to stand out from the crowd. What aspect of what you do can you become known as the expert for?

It could be that you have a way of negotiating that consistently wins new business for the organisation. It could be that your excellent communication skills articulate messages in ways that gets people taking action. Or it could be something else. Whatever it is, think about how you can virtually let more people become aware of this.

Showcase your thought leadership

The great thing about the virtual world is that there are so many mediums on which to demonstrate thought leadership and showcase expertise and credibility. You can tap into these to raise your visibility and profile.

Identify industry publications you can approach to write articles for. The websites of many industry publications list details of how to apply to write for them. Likewise, many publications have podcasts or hold webinars. Put yourself forward to speak on them.

The same goes for company blogs and newsletters. Write articles, record videos for the intranet that showcase your thought leadership. This will help you to raise your profile and visibility within the organisation.

Make sure people can see you  

With so many people working from home over the past year, lots of people have fallen into the habit of not turning on their cameras during virtual meetings. Buck the trend with this and make sure you always have your camera on. If you are concerned about people virtually being in your personal space, you can always blur the background or choose an image for a virtual background.

Arrange virtual one to one meetings, and make sure you have your camera on. Join in with virtual, non work related activities where people can get to know you better. 

In the physical workplace it is easy to pop into someone’s office, pass by their desk, or bump into them in the corridor and ask questions/start conversations that make you more visible. This is something that is lost in the virtual world. 

Having a virtual open-door policy goes someway to making up for this. Have set times in your calendar and show yourself as being available online. People can then pick up the phone and call you or send you an instant message, without having to worry that they are disturbing you.

Utilise social media

Social media is great for raising your visibility when you are working from home. Depending on what it is that you do will determine which platform is best. However, LinkedIn as the business networking site is a good place to start. Whether it is your internal, or you want to expand your external network, use it for connecting with others, or for showcasing your thought leadership and expertise.

Connect with those in your organisation that you want to be visible to and engage with the content they share. Comment on their posts and share them. Likewise, identify people external to the organisation that you want to get to know and connect with them and engage with them.

Share articles, videos, podcasts that are of value to your network. Publish your own articles, videos, and posts on topics within your expertise and share those too.

Going forward we are likely to see more people working from home than before the pandemic, making virtual visibility more important than ever before. If this is something new to you, put into practice the above tips and build momentum and consistency and raise your visibility virtually.

About Carol Stewart

Carol Stewart is an Executive and Career Coach, founder of Abounding Solutions and author of Quietly Visible: Leading With Influence and Impact as an Introverted Woman. She specialises in introverted women who are senior leaders. 

She has been the featured expert in Women and Home Magazine, Good Housekeeping Magazine, The Telegraph, and more. Named a LinkedIn top voice 4 years running, she has also received awards for developing women leaders. She delivers programmes that help leaders to increase their confidence, influence and impact. Find her in the Diverse Executive Coach Directory or https://aboundingsolutions.com