Stating the obvious: LinkedIn Marketing requires having a LinkedIn profile.
Setting up your LinkedIn profile is easy, but there are things that can just as easily be overlooked or not thought of as a necessity. Setting your LinkedIn profile fully will increase your likeliness to gain new leads from the professional social network boasting over 187 million active users.
LinkedIn Profile Must-Haves
When you set up your LinkedIn profile, you’ll need these 7 things:
- Profile picture
- Background summary
- Education
- Career experience
- Your Skills & Expertise
- Get recommendations and endorsements for your professional skills
- Additional info (other interests)
LinkedIn Profile Picture Tips
When you are choosing a photo to use to represent you on LinkedIn, a professional social networking website, keep in mind your first impression and the reputation you want to have.
If you are a chef, a picture of yourself in the kitchen with your apron on. If you are an accountant or business service professional, you’ll want a picture wearing business casual clothes or a suit.
The pictures don’t need to be taken by a professional photographer. Most smart phones now have great cameras that you can use yourself and have a friend or colleague take the picture (also see my article on iPhone photography for beginners).
Your LinkedIn Background Summary
Your LinkedIn background summary is where you can write your own bio. This is the place for you to offer your personal elevator pitch. Give an overview of your expertise and experiences in full story form. This is opposed to the list of skills later on in your LinkedIn profile and specific details of your education and career.
Education And Career Experience
Here is the resume-like section of your LinkedIn profile. Fill in all of your relevant jobs throughout your career. Talk about your job description and successes that you achieved. Of course have your educational background filled out completely.
Listing Your Skills And Expertise
This is another straight forward piece of your LinkedIn profile. Here you will want to add in anything and everything you’ve done professionally. From your day to day, top of the industry skills to the different things you’ve had to pick up along the way pertaining to different projects you’ve worked on, add them here.
Getting LinkedIn Recommendations And Skill Endorsements
Once you have your profile completed from your end (the things above that you can add yourself), you’ll need to get recommendations for your experience and endorsements for your skill set.
Shoot a close colleague a message or email asking them if they’d write a recommendation. To make it even easier, write a paragraph or two yourself that you think would be along the lines of what they would say about you, then just ask them to copy and paste it. This will save you time waiting for them to write something themselves and increase the likeliness that they actually do it. It’s easy for this type of request to get pushed aside and forgotten about, no matter how much they enjoy working with you.
LinkedIn Additional Info
There is one last spot that you can enter in your own information, and that is your Additional Info. You can add in some things of interest that may not pertain directly to your skills or Career Experience. Maybe you have a passion like video or photography and you’re a web designer. That relevant hobby can certainly come in handy!
Keep This Tip In Mind For Your LinkedIn Marketing
Think about keywords that potential customers and strategic partners would be looking for when searching for someone in your position. Use those keywords about what you do throughout your profile. Sprinkle in your professional keywords throughout your background summary, career experience, skills and other interests.
When you have a complete profile and strategically place keywords throughout your page, you are more likely to be found by people searching LinkedIn.
Is Your LinkedIn Profile Complete?
Are you fully taking advantage of all the different aspects of a personal LinkedIn profile? If so, connect with me (www.linkedin.com/in/toddgiannattasio/) and let’s connect! If you have any other advice for personal LinkedIn marketing, leave them in the comments below.
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