The headline, like those in a newspaper, is the key to grabbing readers' attention and then convincing them to read more on the page. Eye- tracking studies show that people spend more time on average reading the headline than on any other part of the profile. Fortunately, you can focus on a few sections that do a lot of the heavy lifting to communicate your brand.įound right underneath your name, the LinkedIn headline is up to 120 characters long and fulfills some incredibly important functions. It can be overwhelming to look at the different sections and fields on the profile. Once you've decided what message you want to share, and whom you want to share it with, the next step is to dive into crafting your profile. HOW TO CRAFT AN OPTIMIZED LINKEDIN PROFILE What would you highlight? Would you focus on your experience, your passion for your work, or your unique ability to solve their problems? That's what your profile should focus on. Imagine that you are talking to your profile visitor offline. Understanding how you want to be perceived is a critical step toward sharing effectively on LinkedIn. The best communicators don't focus on what they want to say but on the information their audience needs or wants to receive. Once you know exactly who is in your target audience, consider what they need to hear from you. What message does that audience need to hear? Or if your business goals require you to be seen as an expert, engage with centers of influence or decision- makers at other firms. For example, if you want to bring in new clients, speak directly to the target market that you serve: business owners, families, etc. Identify the most useful group to engage with, and focus your profile and content on these people. If you try to speak to all of them at the same time, your message will become muddled. Many different people will view your profile. Who is the most important audience for you to communicate with? This process can be as simple as saying, "I want to develop stronger relationships with the leaders in my firm to get on a partner track in the next 12 months." If you are trying to get new clients, you could say, "I want to increase my pipeline of business owners so that I can close five additional deals this quarter." Though your career or business goals may seem obvious to you, it's important to articulate them with specificity. What are your most important business goals? Asking and answering a few simple strategic questions can greatly improve how effective, efficient, and easy- to- use your LinkedIn profile is. It's important to know what you are trying to say before you look at the ways that you can say it. Luckily, a little time and attention can take your LinkedIn profile from lackluster to outstanding (see the sidebar "Examples of Good and Bad LinkedIn Profiles").Īt the root of every ineffective LinkedIn profile and wasted status update is a lack of planning. If you have an unfinished or sloppy LinkedIn profile, that's not the first impression you want to make with someone who could be a client, a colleague, or an employer. If you do a Google search on yourself, there's a good chance that your LinkedIn profile will be one of the top results. A great place to start is with LinkedIn, which has a huge footprint with more than 400 million members. That's why it's important to control the brand messages that you are sending online. In fact, we can decide whether we even want to start a professional conversation based on what we find. Now, we can research and investigate someone before we ever engage. In the past, we would extend provisional trust to someone and then build a working relationship to bolster that trust. The omnipresence of digital information has flipped the traditional process of how we establish business relationships. 3 STRATEGIC QUESTIONS MAKE ALL THE DIFFERENCE This article shows how to use LinkedIn to move your career forward. LinkedIn can lead the way in influencing how others engage with you in your online and offline interactions. Many online- savvy people who also are active on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, and other social media outlets use their LinkedIn profile as the cornerstone for their online professional brand. One of the easiest and most powerful ways you can take control of your online presence is to harness the reach and influence of your LinkedIn profile. Whether you are looking to attract new clients, advance in your firm, or find a new opportunity, your online presence shapes how others view you. Your digital presence has an effect-either positive or negative-on your career and business. Just a few short years ago, you could safely ignore your digital footprint and it wouldn't affect your real- world interactions.
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