Your personal marketing tool-kit: Making your LinkedIn profile earn its keep
In this blog post, Heather Townsend, co-author of the newly published ‘The Go-To Expert’ and author of the best-selling and award-winning ‘The FT Guide To Business Networking’ shares her tips on how to make your LinkedIn profile, along with your headshot from John, earn its keep.
The Hinge Research Institute recently published some research, which said that nearly 60% of potential clients would check out your
social media profiles, typically LinkedIn, before contacting you. Therefore, if you have gone to the effort of getting yourself a brilliant headshot from John, don’t waste your impact by ignoring the rest of what goes in your profile. After all, if your LinkedIn profile is sparsely or poorly written, you may never hear from that potential client…
1. Fill your profile in – yes, all of it.
The vast majority of LinkedIn profiles are a truncated, quickly scribbled form of the individual’s CV. Do your potential clients want to see a half-hearted attempt at reproducing your CV on LinkedIn? No. Your LinkedIn profile is your professional shop window into the world. So, make sure that you are using every inch of valuable personal marketing real estate.
2. Answer the question ‘why would anyone want to work with me?’ (Or hire me, for job-seekers)
Of course, the majority of people looking at your LinkedIn profile will be doing the equivalent of ‘just browsing’. Not everyone will be. Some will be looking at your profile with an agenda. This could be a potential client, referrer, employee or employer. Therefore, to help you answer the ‘why would anyone want to work with me?’ question, answer some or all of these questions in your summary section:
- Why do my clients choose to work with me?
- Who I work with?
- Recent accolades and professional endorsements include…
- What type of results I achieve for my clients…
3. Attach content to your LinkedIn profile
LinkedIn allows you to attach multi-media to your profile. Therefore, pick up some content, which helps sell you. This could be video clips of you in action, your show-reel, white papers you have written, articles you have had published etc
4. Use your professional photo
You will be surprised how many people don’t actually upload a professional headshot of themselves on their LinkedIn profile. John will be able to help you get exactly the right look, feel and image with your LinkedIn profile photo.
5. Include a professional strapline
Your professional strapline is the 120 characters ‘tag line’ which goes with you everywhere in LinkedIn. Don’t leave this blank or accept the default option, which LinkedIn provides. Include keywords which potential clients (or employers) will use to find someone like you. For example, most people looking for a new accountant don’t search for a Chartered Accountant. They will search for an accountant who specialising in…
Author Credit
Heather Townsend is the co-author of the newly published ‘‘The Go-To Expert’ and the author of the award-winning and best-selling ‘The FT Guide To Business Networking’.
