More generally, it is now important to build a strong and serious identity online. The objective is to gain visibility around the internet, in order to improve your reputation and increase the chances of having opportunities for collaboration. So, taking care of your LinkedIn profile is crucial to achieve these goals.
The question is :
“How to use LinkedIn to maximize the impact of your profile?”
Here below you may read some tips that will help you make a better use of this social network and enhance your image and your professionalism in the eyes of those who are looking for collaborators.
1. Choose Your Strategy LinkedIn-check-up
You have to decide what you want to write and how to present yourself in your LinkedIn profile. It is a question of having a strategy for your presence on this social network.
Which image would you give yourself ? Which professional and personal skills do you want to highlight? How to orient your profile in a way that your skills are in line with the work you are doing or you are looking for?
In short: how to build a profile consistent with your career goals?
Answering these questions is essential. Otherwise, your LinkedIn contact profile may give to the readers a partial working image of you or even wrong, far from what is your real professionalism.
2. Do Not Treat Your LinkedIn Profile as a C.V.
Your LinkedIn profile is something different from your Curriculum Vitae. More precisely: we can say that it is something complementary to your c.v.
In practice: your LinkedIn profile should not duplicate your resume step by step, but it must contain a statement of the information covered in more detail in your c.v.
This means that your LinkedIn profile is not an online c.v., but a tool that shows easily the best of your professionalism.
So, as mentioned above, another tip is to use the maximum synthesis!
A recruiter who wishes to deepen the data you have written in your LinkedIn profile will ask you your C.V. or will invite you to an interview.
3. Be Honest
When you are writing your LinkedIn profile is necessary for you to be honest.
This means that just as you would prepare your resume or curriculum vitae, do not be tempted to exaggerate your skills.
4. Take Care of all the Details
When you fill out your LinkedIn profile, try to be clear and precise in every detail. The rigor exhibition – along with the synthesis – is very appreciated by any recruiter.
In particular, avoid like the plague errors of spelling, grammar, syntax and slang or dialect! Mistakes of this kind can destroy your credibility.
Take advantage of LinkedIn's Creator Mode to add a link to your website on your profile.
5. Add One or More Applications
To give a more professional look to your LinkedIn profile, you can install one or more applications.
The applications allow you to show more detailed information about you and your work. Here are some examples of applications available:
• WordPress : if you have a blog that you want to show in your professional profile, this application allows you to display your latest posts.
• ReadingList : this is an application that shows the books that you read or what you're reading.
• Events : this one allows you to display on your LinkedIn profile the events in your field in which you participate.
• SlideShare Presentations : this is an application that allows you to include in your profile a Curriculum Vitae via SlideShare.
6. Add a Professional Photo
Even the photo in your LinkedIn profile says something about you. So which one should you choose?
First, it must be a professional photo. By “professional” I mean a picture of good quality, which portrays in the foreground.
In the photo you must be dressed in order and smile. It is not essential that you are in a suit and tie and that you use, as a background, a work context.
You may however also take into account the latter case, since LinkedIn is a professional social network.
7. Use the “Answers” Service
Through the “Answers” service of LinkedIn, you have the opportunity to ask questions to which users can respond in the social network. Similarly, you can reply to questions posted by others.
As it can be imagined, “Answers” is an excellent way to demonstrate your professional preparation. In addition, if you are very active in answering the questions of others, you can be rewarded as “expert” and enjoy benefits in terms of visibility.
8. Fill Out the “Basic Information”
In the “Basic Information” section of your LinkedIn profile you must enter your first and last name, job title, geography area and sector. This section is very important, as these data appear next to your name and your photo, in the research.
It is also of particular importance the choice of your job title, because this really explains what you do.
Pay attention: what you write as a job title must be in perfect agreement with your professionalism and your strategy of presence in this social network. So be very careful in this choice. Avoid imaginative acronyms.
Keep it short, simple, and clear.
9. Fill in the “Summary” Section
The “Summary” section is the area of your LinkedIn profile that explains who you are as a professional. “Summary” is divided into subsections : “Professional experience and goals” and “Specialties”.
In the subsection “Professional experience and goals“, write a brief but accurate portrayal of you.
In the subsection “Specialties” expose roughly what you do particularly well in your workplace.
10. Fill in the “Experience”
In the “Experience” section of your LinkedIn profile you need to briefly indicate your work experience, from the present to the past.
For each experience write a short description, with specific attention to the job title in the “Qualification”.
Do not forget your strategy of presence in this social network. This means that all your work experiences must be seen – when possible – as a consistent and continuous professional growth path.
11. Fill out the “Education” Section
In the “Education” section you must enter your schooling: high school, college, post-graduate courses and master, significant professional qualifications etc.. Here you can also specify any university studies interrupted.
If your thesis is particularly interesting and consistent with the strategy of your presence in LinkedIn, you can mention it here as well, indicating briefly the issues and the final vote, if brilliant.
12. Attends to the Section “Recommendations”
The recommendations are certificates of merit that other members give you. This represent a great way to increase value of your professional on LinkedIn.
You should try to get at least some of them. Avoid, however, to have the recommendation from a person in return for another one from you, or accumulate recommendations from colleagues, friends or even relatives!
In this sense, the best recommendations are from your customers and employers.
13. Fill in the “Additional Information”
This section is divided into several subsections. In the first one, “Websites“, you can specify up to three links. For example, you can enter your personal blog, your personal website and the website of your business.
In the subsection “Twitter” you should insert your Twitter account.
The subsection “Interest” means your hobbies and your skills out of your work.
Regarding the “Groups and Associations” subsection, you can list the names of groups and associations which you are member.
About groups: LinkedIn gives you the opportunity to participate in the activities of the groups present in this social network and you can also enter them in this subsection. Among other things, LinkedIn allows you not only to subscribe to existing groups, but also to found yourself new ones.
Register and participate in the activities of groups that are related to your interests gives you a lot of visibility in this social network.
In the subsection “Honor and Awards” you can quote any significant mention that you have received and that you think will be consistent with your strategy of presence in LinkedIn.
14. Fill out the “Personal Information”
As appropriate, in the “Personal Information” of your LinkedIn profile you can write some of your contacts and personal information, as telephone number, instant messaging, address, date of birth, marital status.
Bonus Video:
LinkedIn Tutorial: How to create a Company Page on Linked In by Laura on Social Media
15. Fill out the “Contact NAME for”
In the section “Contact NAME for” of your LinkedIn profile you can define what type of contacts you're looking for. For example, you can choose to be contacted for a job, consulting offers or for business deals.
16. Use the “Add Sections”
In order to improve your LinkedIn profile you can insert additional sections using the “Add sections” feature.
In my opinion, the most important sections to be added are “Languages” – the list of languages you know and the level of mastery – and “Publications” – a list of books, e-books, articles you have published .
17. Update the Status of Your LinkedIn profile
Like all the social networks, LinkedIn also allows you to update your status in your profile, by using the “Share an Update“.
The updates are another good way to give visibility to your profile. But be careful of what you write, especially if you are using a service that allows you to automatically share your status when you update it in another social network!
18. Choose the Setting “Public Profile”
The way to make more visible your LinkedIn profile is to make it public, that is freely accessible by anyone and, consequently, indexable by Google and all other search engines.
How to make public your LinkedIn profile?
Choose the “Make my profile public and visible to all” in the “Settings” panel under the “Edit your public profile.”
19. Create a Vanity URL
You should create a vanity URL for your profile like “www.linkedin.com / in / namesurname”.
For your online visibility, a vanity URL is much better than the id you receive when you sign up.
20. Create Your Own Network of Contacts
A fundamental objective of your LinkedIn profile is to find new contacts. A contact is a person who is present in your network that you can use in order to connect with other people or companies.
So, how to find new contacts in LinkedIn?
Spam is not an effective strategy, even if it does get some results. In fact, if you ask to connect to anyone, it is likely that you will be able to build a quite substantial network. And having a good group of contacts, although heterogeneous, always gives you some advantage of visibility.
Another strategy, more intelligent, is to get connected only to people with whom you have a relationship in real life. By doing so, you'll likely to get less links, but most useful.
How to apply for connection to another user of LinkedIn?
Once you have identified the potential new contact, you may send a message through the form of invitation. LinkedIn offers a standard message of invitation to add new contacts to your network. However, it is always better to customize it.
How to behave with those who ask to connect with you?
Rate and choose carefully the invitations to accept, on the basis if they are consistent with the strategy of your presence on this social network.
21. Create a LinkedIn Profile with an eye on SEO
Creating a good profile consistent with your professionalism is not enough. In fact, you must make sure that you can be found among more than 175 million profiles on this social network.
For this to happen, remember the SEO rules.
In short: trough the various sections of your LinkedIn profile, use the most important keywords in your niche.
Do not be tempted to use strange acronyms in their place!
Every profession is described by specific terms or expressions. Your keywords are precisely those terms or expressions.
22. Be Consistent with your LinkedIn Profile
Your professional image on LinkedIn depend on the attention you pay with the maintenance of your profile.
The more your profile is updated, the better your chances are of hitting the goals that you placed with your strategies.
What about your LinkedIn profile? Is it updated or not?
I hope you found some useful points in this list and I would like to know more from you in the comments. Thanks!