Is Your LinkedIn Profile Working Hard Enough?
LinkedIn (LI) is one of today’s premier social media sites, originally designed specifically for professional networking and engagement. According to 2020 end-of-year statistics, it has over 766 million users worldwide and nearly half actively use the platform every month. That’s a lot of people you have the potential to reach out to and connect with.
Other social media platforms are available, but as a small-business owner LI is my best follow-up connection to most people that I meet professionally, in person or virtually. It’s turned into my professional and personal “Yellow Pages” (remember those from phone book days?) — a good space to nurture professional relationships. And if people change employers/jobs it’s a way to find them.
So assuming that your experience is at least somewhat like mine, what does this mean? To make your LI profile work hard for you, keep it current and make sure your contact information is always up to date. When it isn’t, you lose options for connecting, communicating and building your network.
LI is a voluntary platform, of course, unless it’s a requirement for your job. At some point somebody probably told that you needed to have a profile or it was part of the sign-up process. So you set up a basic profile page just to get up and running. It became a “I’ll do more with this later when I have the time” thing. But how long has it been since you’ve really looked at that page? Is it still accurate or does it need some attention? Here are a few ideas.
- Be clear about why you’re using LI now and how your profile supports that goal. A COVID-19 induced job hunt is likely to be quite different from how you used LI in a previous job.
- Use the branding headline banner to show your audience how you differ from others/competition by sharing your expertise or unique background.
- Make sure your professional head shot is up to date.
- Check that the “Visibility of Your Profile and Network” fits with your current situation.
- Recheck your “Account Settings” and make sure your contact information is up to date.
- Add content in the “Featured” section to create a rich summary of your expertise; showcase photos, videos, blog articles, websites, etc.
- When writing/updating your “About” section, use the first person and share relevant, perhaps even some personal information — who you are, what you do and how you can help others. Close with a call to action such as “Let’s Connect!” and include how they can reach you.
- Recheck to make sure any previous information about your education, work experience, projects, awards, etc. is current.
- Have someone who knows you and your work well take a final look at your profile before you post it live. Have them help you look for typos and other errors as well as content.
LI is social media so you have to face the reality of trolls, bots and privacy. In my experience this has been less of an issue on LI than other social media platforms. But if you’re using the Internet for anything these days, assume that bots are scraping and trolls are after you. In general, the more visibility you allow the more reasons others will have to connect with you. So the amount and type of contact information you put in your LI profile comes down to personal choice and privacy concerns.
For example, you might feel just fine with putting your email and physical addresses and phone number(s) on the most public setting in your LI profile. Or you might feel better about privacy and safety if you only show an email address that you’ve set up specifically for potential LI contacts. Whatever you decide, it’s smart to give people some way(s) on your profile page to contact you in addition to LI’s own internal messaging function.
If you’re on LinkedIn, is your profile up to date and showing what you want people to see about you in early 2021? Invest some time today in polishing up your LI profile. It might bring you surprising opportunities and rewards in networking, engagement and professional growth.
