10 Tips to Improve Your LinkedIn Profile
1. Photos
Make sure you have a recent business appropriate head shot. I know LinkedIn is a bit less stuffy that it was but it is still not the place for a photo that was taken late at night, on the beach or by your self in the bathroom.
It is also a good idea to have a banner photo as well, rather than the nasty blue one which comes as standard. This should be something relevant to your business and correctly sized for LinkedIn so it is not blurred. The correct size currently is 1584×396 pixels and under 4 mega bites in size. I use the free version of Canva to design mine.
2. Help Statement
Make full use of the headline and summary sections on your profile under your name. These help people looking for the services you offer decide quickly if you can help them and if they want to connect or follow you.
This is a great tip once which both Janet Murray and Mark Williams advocate. A lot of people use this to say "Catherine France - Project Manager" but by using the Headline to spell out your help statement people can see what you do and if you can help them in 120 characters. Importantly, this section of text appears in the search results and can help you stand out against your competitors.
3. Blog
If you want to start a blog for your business or raise your online profile, using the LinkedIn Articles is a great way to start. This is what I have done and it works quite well. You can add pictures, change the layout, add in headings and links and save drafts of articles you are working on. Once you press publish you can then write a post introducing the article, maybe asking a question relating to the article. As far as I know you can't tag people in the article or post but you can tag them in the comments, this helps if you want particular people to comment, share or engage with the content - it is wise to have asked them in advance! This feature can help you demonstrate your knowledge and skills to potential clients or future employers.
4. Engage with People
If people take the time to contact you on LinkedIn then I always take the time to reply or thank people who have liked, commented or shared my posts. It does not take long and can lead to really interesting and useful conversations as well as helping boost their posts or your own.
Also be confident, if there is an article or post you feel passionate about or have something to add then leave a comment or ask a question, people will respond and join in and you can have some great conversations with people which started with a simple comment.
The proof is, I had a great chat on the phone with a lovely lady who I regularly engage with on LinkedIn and who comments and likes my posts and articles about how we could create different ways of engaging people via LinkedIn as a group.
5. Connect with the Right People
This is a big area for me in 2018 and I have a healthy network of connections but there are sure to be more potential clients out there that I can find via LinkedIn, after all with over 400 million users the potential is huge. Part of my approach for finding them is by following and connecting with influencers and key people my industry as well as searching for key prospects in my niche by actively searching and then joining in conversations or following them, a little bit of light internet stalking! I even keep track of competitors to see what they are doing, after all they can follow me.
You can control your user settings to protect connections so nobody else can see or access them so unless the person inviting you to connect is an obvious spammer, you should accept his or her invite. The more people you are connected to on LinkedIn, the better.
6. Be Consistent
If you are going to post every week then post every week. It is important that you are consistent but don't over stretch yourself, if you can't post every day then don't. It is better to write one quality article or post a week than broadcasting for the sake of it. I would love to post more than I do but at the moment I have to be realistic and once a week is what I am aiming for. I might post more often this and be liking and commenting on other posts where it is appropriate to do so.
7. Don't Try to Sell
When I first saw this I was a little confused, I thought surely that is why people are in business but while that is the case people want to buy from you they don't want to be sold to. Yes, I am on LinkedIn to raise my profile in the hope that lots of people like and share my content and that some of those same people want to engage my for my services but to try and sell to them directly does not feel right to me.
The best I can hope for here is that people see my content and either drop me a line on LinkedIn or head over to my website to find out more about me, once it is finished!
8. Personalise Your URL
Promote your public profile and allow others to easily identify you in search results by changing or customising your public profile URL. You can do this quickly and easily using the following steps:
Click the "Me" icon at the top of your LinkedIn homepage.
Click View profile.
On your profile page, click "Edit your public profile & URL" on the right.
Under Edit public profile URL in the right rail, click the Edit icon next to your public profile URL.
Type the last part of your new custom URL in the text box.
Click Save.
9. Contact Details
Make yourself easy to reach by people who might be searching for your services, this is especially useful if journalists or buyers are trying to find you so make sure you complete the contact information section. As a minimum include e-mail, phone number, website and Twitter account details.
10. Turn Your Summary Into a Story
By turning your summary into a story, a lot of people don't fill in this section or fill it with buzz words and jargon, you can create a great opportunity to bring your own story to life expanding on your headline you can use this section to describe how you can help people and how they can work with you. Spend some time on this, try a few drafts, and run your summary past people you know. I am going to be working on mine in 2018, this is a valuable piece of content and worth the time investing in it.
I hope you have found this useful?
If you have any comments, suggestions or would like to add to the list please feel free to leave a comment.
For a free copy of my GDPR checklist you subscribe here on the website.
