Social Media, such an all encompassing aspect of our daily lives in 2019. Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Twitter, Snapchat… How much attention do they get, both in terms of our time and our ‘offline’ discourse. They’ve provided a great service, in terms of the ability for people to connect to each other and to like-minded groups and brands, however there’s increasingly been controversy and criticism. It’s certainly been a tumultuous time for the aforementioned social networks.
There’s one social platform however, I don’t believe belongs on the list with the others. It doesn’t appear to have the same devious demand on attention, nor the complete polarization of conversation as offered by the others. It actually seems to be there for a productive purpose and appears to be fulfilling that role. The platform I’m referring to, is LinkedIn. Have you heard of much scandal, much controversy, political hearings etc.. around LinkedIn? I certainly haven’t. It exists to connect professionals to other professionals and to businesses and industries. It seems to be doing exactly as intended.
It’s becoming increasingly important for individuals to have a presence on LinkedIn, particularly if looking for a job or networking within a particular industry. That’s what we’re going to focus on here; the individual LinkedIn profile and how to ensure its’ geared for results. This could mean being approached by recruiters, building a reputation in your industry or connecting with potential leads for your product or service. Even if you run your own business and have a company page, a personal page can still be a great tool.
I’m slowly going through the process of optimising my my own profile. As you can see, it’s certainly not perfect but it’s a hell of a lot better than it was! We’ll cover everything I’ve learnt and how you can apply that to your own.
The Basics of Your LinkedIn Profile
Personal URL
First things first, set yourself a personal URL. You can click on the top right hand corner of your profile where it says ‘edit public profile and URL’. Simply change this to your name, or something relevant to what you’re doing.
Get a Professional Headshot
This is the image of you everybody sees.Recruiters, clients, colleagues… everyone. Make sure it represents you appropriately. Phone cameras are more than good enough to take a quality image in 2019, just ensure you look presentable and have a plain background that doesn’t detract from your profile.
Optimise Your Headline
The headline is the text directly under your name when viewing your profile. This is prime real estate. Not only do you need to efficiently summarise what exactly you do, it’s a good idea to stuff a few keywords in there to help recruiters identify you and to improve the chances of coming up in a search.
Using phrases such as ‘copywriter’, ‘marketing specialist’, ‘HR Manager’ etc.. are generally going to be more effective than tailored phrases such as ‘wordsmith’, ‘talent specialist’ etc..
List Your Work History
This is the bread and butter of your profile. Fill out each job description with as much info as possible, again sprinkling some relevant keywords in. You can essentially treat this as you would on a resume, using dot-points to highlight key skills or achievements with each role.
Link to the companies page if it’s an option, otherwise just add your own version.
List Relevant Skills & Accomplishments
This isn’t the time to be modest! List all the achievements, accomplishments, awards and skills that you can. Upload the certificates themselves, use images, videos.. as much content as you can.
Grow Your Network
Add people to your network! This is a social media platform after all. You’ll get a lot of recommednations as soon as you sign up. Add as many of these as you deem relevant. Then there are options to connect your email and other lists to find more potential networks on the platform. This is a great post worth reading on how to build your LinkedIn Network.
Write Content
A phenomenal way to showcase your expertise in a subject is to write posts on the topic. This can in short form- reposting an article and commenting on it for example, or it can be a fully fledged blog post. Just like on your website, long-form tends to work best (meaning over 1,500 words).
If you can commit to producing these regularly, you’ll soon reap the rewards.
Link Back to Your Profile
Add a link to your LinkedIn profile wherever you can. Be it from your personal website, your company website, your Facebook page, email signature.. make sure people can find it easily. This not only increases the chances of them clicking through to your page, it will likely boost your LinkedIn search rankings.
Yes, it can be a bit of work, but I’m sure building a high quality LinkedIn profile will be a productive use of your time. This is a key aspect of Social Media Marketing for your personal brand. Make no mistake, you are a brand, whether you choose to position yourself that way or not. You might as well put your best face forward…
