Whether you’re an individual setting out to be an industry thought leader or a brand seeking leads, LinkedIn is a valuable tool for business success.
Think of your profile as your digital shopfront. It’s the first impression you make on potential employers, clients, and collaborators. Get it right, and you’ll see a positive impact on your brand and bottom line.
This guide will help you craft a compelling LinkedIn profile, from your photo to SEO optimisation. We’ll cover everything you need to maximise the potential of LinkedIn for you, your team, and your business. Here are eight steps to consider.
Clear and consistent visuals and branding
If you’re a business, make sure that you have a high-quality logo or brand mark as your profile image and header. Make sure that you are following LinkedIn’s most up-to-date design rules, or else it will end up cropped and distorted.
To fully weave your brand throughout your entire Linkedin ecosystem, a professional photoshoot for your team is a good idea. This way, you and all of your team members will have brand and visual uniformity.
Create a compelling summary headline
Make sure that it accurately reflects your role, experience, current position, and your value proposition. Be clear and concise for anyone visiting your LinkedIn profile for the first time.
You can also take your headlines a step further. Use online search keyword research to insert valuable relevant keywords into your headline. Having these keywords present in your LinkedIn profile can have positive impacts on your overall search presence. Having a high presence in SERP is a crucial part of digital PR and Online Reputation Management.
For instance, if someone is searching for Project Management Specialists in the construction sector, if your keywords are tuned into your LinkedIn profile, they will have a much easier time finding you both on and off the platform.
List your skills, endorsements and recommendations
Listing your own skills and experience is one thing, but it’s even more powerful when these come from your colleagues, recruiters, clients, and peers.
Having others endorse you, and your teams, helps further validate your key skills and proficiences. So canvas colleagues, clients, end users and whoever you can, to add endorsements and recommendations. They serve as incredibly powerful trust signals that can showcase your capability and credibility.
Post relevant content regularly
The frequency and cadence of output and engagement on LinkedIn are very important.
Posting irregular content and updates serves very little benefit. You will need to get into the mindset of regular, relevant content.
Have a content strategy in place that includes long-form feed posts of LinkedIn blogs by company thought leaders. LinkedIn is also prioritising video as its content format of choice, so think about how you can take your written thought leadership and convert it into an engaging and entertaining video.
Like, share, comment…engage
LinkedIn runs on engagement. Respond promptly to comments on posts from your business page. This will show that you place value in being part of a wider industry community. Don’t be a monolith in your sector.
You can also engage your internal teams, by sharing their own Linkedin content on your main business page. Celebrate achievements or share a great post on a pressing industry topic.
Engage with content from your connections. This could be industry influencers and key decision makers, media or other thought leaders within your professional network.
Carefully manage your online reputation
In business, your reputation is your bond. Ensure that your teams understand that when they are online, they’re representing the interests of the business. There’s a code of conduct when it comes to being on Linkedin, professionalism comes before personal opinion, this isn’t Facebook.
If anything should arise that could damage that, then you need to approach the situation very carefully. This is where crisis management comes into play.
A ‘crisis’ could be a negative review or criticism aimed at your business, but it could also be something a lot more serious. Ensure that you’re prepared with an effective crisis management policy.
Test and learn
LinkedIn is indeed a very competitive place to set out your stall. There are 830 million members on the platform and 67 million listed companies. Whichever way you look at it, that’s a lot of noise.
Challenge yourself to consistently deliver high-quality content and engage with your audience. But most importantly, know what’s working for you and what’s not to get noticed. To do so, adopt a test-and-learn mindset. Don’t be disheartened if a particular post doesn’t land. Learn from it and go again.
Enjoy the process!
These practical tips will help you to create a compelling and engaging LinkedIn profile that acts as a springboard to a richer professional network. Enjoy the process of building relationships, sharing knowledge, and growing your influence within your industry.
