Many people visit your LinkedIn profile before they decide whether to connect with you or not. People look at your profile to decide whether they are going to send one of their 3,000 invitations for you to connect with them. That means your profile needs to look nice and spiffy to bring in more connections. So how does that happen? How can your profile attract people and get them to connect with you? Here are five ways to do that:
- Make sure your picture on LinkedIn is professional. Although not recommended, you could possibly get away with an unprofessional picture on Twitter and Facebook. LinkedIn is completely different. It is a social network in which professional business people connect with each other. Make sure you are wearing a tie and buttoned down collared shirt and having someone else take the picture so your LinkedIn profile shines.
- Write a longer bio. Your bio represents who you are. If you have a short bio, visitors may believe that there is not much to know about you. Having a long bio tells your visitors that you have an interesting life and numerous accomplishments.
- Have a blog. There are more reasons than ever to have your own blog. Having a blog gives you your own home on the web and boosts your credibility. It seems as if more people and organizations on LinkedIn than ever have their own blogs.
- Have your own products. Having your own products is another way to make you look professional. A product tells people that you have enough expertise to create a product out of it. If you don’t have your own products, create them.
- Include your location. It is okay for people to know what city you live in. People are shy of sharing their location because of the potential risk. You are still safe by sharing the city you live in. The only way someone could pinpoint your exact location is if they knew your address which is something that should not be put on a LinkedIn profile (unless the address is for a business). Including this in your LinkedIn profile will allow you to connect with people nearby, and you will appear in LinkedIn’s search engine more often.
Those are the five ways to improve your LinkedIn profile. Which methods on the list are your strengths and which ones are the weaknesses? Do you know of any other methods out there to improving a LinkedIn profile? Please share your thoughts and advice below.
Marc,
Great information regarding LinkedIn profiles. Not only do you need a thorough bio, but I feel it needs to catch the readers attention and keep them engaged.
Thank you Troy. I agree that bios must keep the reader engaged. A bio should do more than tell people what you do. A bio should tell people your story in a way that makes the bio a must-read.
In my opinion the headline of your LinkedIn profile is the most important thing everybody should focus on. It’s the key place to highlight your career targets.
At a minimum, yours should contain your target title(s), industry(ies), #1 geographic preference, and skill keywords. Since you only have 120 characters to work with, you will have to keep your headline brief.
So you can attract more attention from recruiters and open the door to more career possibilities.
Thank you for the additional advice Alex. The headline of a LinkedIn profile is definitely an important way to get noticed.
Marc, this article hits on some very sound and reasonable aspects of LinkedIn networking, our profiles on this social media platform indeed says a lot about who and what we represent as an online marketing entreprenuer…
Thank you. I’m glad you liked the article. LinkedIn is definitely a powerful social network that you do not want to underestimate.