How To Optimize Your LinkedIn Profile
We live in a world today where social selling is one of the quickest and most effective ways to advance your career. Whether you are in a sales profession looking for prospects, in another field looking for promotion opportunities, or if you’re looking for a career change, social selling is where it is at. One of the single most valuable tools for social selling is LinkedIn, and there are some simple things that you can do to optimize your profile and build your brand.
Why Your LinkedIn Profile Matters
Your profile on LinkedIn is important for a number of reasons. Times have changed, and now a LinkedIn profile often takes the place of a traditional resume or is at least the starting point for developing new professional relationships. I’m sure you’ve seen it happen: a colleague mentions someone, a prospect perhaps, and they tell you to look him up on LinkedIn, or they send you a link to his LinkedIn profile. It’s the fastest way to get a feel for who a person is, and what his or her brand is all about. That’s why it is so important to have a LinkedIn profile that is optimized and lets people know who you are.
Things To Update Right Now
Everyone knows that it is important to make a good first impression, and that’s just what your LinkedIn profile is the first impression. So, you’ve got to make it the best that it can be, and there are four key areas on your profile that you should update immediately.
1. Your Profile Picture - Take a look at your photo. Does it look professional? Is it something that represents you that you want to present to other professionals? Or does it belong on Facebook, rather than LinkedIn? Your photo is the first thing that people will see when they look at your profile, so it needs to be the right one. The focus of the picture should be just you, with a nice backdrop. You don’t want to use candid shots or pictures where you have to crop something, or someone, else out. You don’t necessarily have to have a professional photo taken, but it needs to look like you did.
2. A Strong Header - Your header needs to be more than just your job title. Headers that include something that suggests what your company offers, or what your expertise is work best. In my header, I use things like “Social Selling Expert” and “Keynote Speaker” along with my company name. This tells people what I do, not just my title where I work. One thing you can do to really optimize your header is test different wording to see what works. I might change the word “expert” for the word “consultant,” or add or remove the word “sales” from my header. Monitor the changes to see which wording encourages, and which wording deters, people from contacting you. The important thing to remember is to keep it fresh and use what works.
3. Contact and social information - Be sure to keep this area updated with current information. It’s easy to forget to make updates when you change companies or personal websites. Speaking of personal websites, it’s easy to obtain your own unique URL, and you should do so. Adding links to your personal and company websites allows people viewing your profile to get to know who you are and what you do.
4. Articles And Projects - This section allows you to really show who you are as a professional. If your work includes articles that you have written, you can list them here. You can also list any projects that you played a part in at your company. Think about listing projects that have gained publicity for your company, those that were big initiatives, or those that were successful endeavors for your company. This lets viewers know what you think and what your strengths are and tells them what sort of professional you are.
There are other areas of your LinkedIn profile that you should continually update, but if you start with these four key areas, I know that you will see a difference in the traffic and contacts your profile receives. Be sure to check the completion percentage on the top right of your LinkedIn profile page. It is the best way to know where you are with your profile, and what else you need to do to get it to the optimal level.
