14 tips to nail your LinkedIn profile

LinkedIn is the quickest and easiest way to build a professional image. It is the leading professional networking and career development platform, with one billion users globally. There’s no better place for creating a contact list of industry leaders and peers, as well as building your personal brand to the right audience. 

Whatever part of your career journey you are on, LinkedIn provides a great basis to get your name in front of the people you want to connect with to help advance your professional goals. 

If you’re ready to put your name out there and grow your personal brand, it’s important that your profile ticks all the boxes as a main point of contact. A polished profile helps your credibility and can significantly boost your reach. Fortunately, it’s not as difficult as it sounds. 

One: Add a Profile Photo

The first step is matching your face with your name. Add an up-to-date photo wearing clothes similar to what you would wear to work. Have your face take up around 60% of the photo. Don’t be afraid to include a nice, warm smile. 

Two: Add a Background Photo

The background image adds context and visual flair to your profile. Choose something that’s relevant to you and your industry to keep it consistent. 

Three: Curate Your Headline

While you’re more likely to see the headline being job title and organisation eg. “Associate at Popcom”, many users add other tidbits showcasing achievements, qualifications, expertise, and more. Using suitable keywords helps your SEO and helps your audience understand more about you. 

Four: Record and Display Your Name

If you have a name that might run the risk of being mispronounced, there is a feature that has floated around on LinkedIn for a while that allows you to record and display the correct pronunciation of your name on your profile. 

Five: Make Your Summary Into a Story

Your summary is your chance to tell your story - including your background, interests, and skills. Write it in the first person and bring to life why your skills matter and the difference they can make to the people you work with. 

It’s worth the effort to get this part right, it is your most personal piece of content marketing.

Six: Don’t use Buzzwords

Buzzwords are adjectives that are used so often in LinkedIn headlines and summaries that they lose their meaning. LinkedIn’s most overused buzzwords include terms like ‘specialised’, ‘leadership’, ‘focused’, ‘strategic’, ‘experienced’, ‘passionate’, ‘expert’, ‘creative’, ‘innovative’ and ‘certified’. This doesn’t mean you can’t use them, but it just means you need to demonstrate them with the types of content and engagement you’re contributing to the platform. Show not tell.

Seven: List Your Relevant Skills

This one is super simple. Scroll through the list of skills and identify those that are relevant to you. Listing relevant skills reinforces what you have written in your headline and summary, and it also give a platform for other people to endorse you. 

The key here is staying relevant. A long list of skills that aren’t really core to who you are and what you do, can start to feel disingenuous. Take time for a spring clean of your skills list every now and then.

Eight: Be Proactive with Endorsements

How do you get endorsed on LinkedIn? For starters, go through your network and identify connections who you feel genuinely deserve an endorsement from you – that’s often the trigger for people to return the favour. 

Don’t be afraid to reach out with a polite message asking for endorsement for a few key skills as well. Remember though, be relevant. Reach out to people whose endorsement you’d really value.

Once endorsements do start to come in, you might find that they don’t completely reflect the work you want to be known for. It could be that your core area of expertise has changed, particularly for people earlier in their career. Be proactive in managing your endorsements list using the edit features in the Skills section of your profile – you can choose which to show, and which to hide.

Nine: Request Recommendations

Recommendations are a step further than endorsements. They are personal testimonials that will add a lot of weight and reflect the experience of working with you. 

There is an easy to use drop-down menu in the Recommendations section of your profile. LinkedIn has made it easy to reach out to specific contacts and request recommendations, just ensure you take the time to think about who you would value a recommendation from. Please also personalise your request, it is important and worth the extra effort.

Ten: Share Relevant Content

It’s great to have lots of connections, but don’t forget to talk to them! Being active on LinkedIn will nurture your network and help you stay front of mind.

By sharing content such as articles, case studies and updates you will be present on your connections’ LinkedIn feeds. It is best to do this in a way that adds value to your audience. It can be as simple as sharing insights that are appealing to you, with an addition of your opinion or thought.

If you are stuck with what to share, start with your organisations content. They will be happy you have made the effort to promote their brand and you will know you are sharing relevant content. 

Eleven: Comment on others peoples shares

Adding comments to other people in your network’s posts will give them a boost as well as you! It is a win win. Expressing your support and sharing your views on a topic will encourage other people to contribute – which will raise your profile, and it will also help to establish you as a thought leader. 

It is worth noting that it is okay to have a difference in opinion, but do it in a positive way. The written word can always be interpreted incorrectly, so always try to be positive in social networking. Add commentary that you are proud of and you are happy to be associated with.

Twelve: Follow Relevant Industry Influencers

Industry leaders provide a gold mine of relevant posts that you can learn from and share with your own network. This also adds to the relevance of your profile. 

Thirteen: Contribute to Collaborative Articles

A new feature offered by LinkedIn are collaborative articles, where users with relevant expertise are asked to contribute their perspective to an article, helping you build your profile and capabilities to answer a certain topic. 

Fourteen: Monitor your SSI

LinkedIn also has a great way of measuring how relevant your profile is within your industry and your engagement score, through its Social Selling Index (SSI). It’s completely free to use, and gives you a rating out of 100 for a number of categories that let you understand how your profile is performing and how you can improve. 

They are my fourteen tips! I was going to go with lucky thirteen but the SSI is too good not the share.

There are paid tools such as sales navigator and recruitment professional accounts available in LinkedIn if you are intending on using the platform for more than organic business development. Following the basic steps I have outlined above will elevate your personal brand and present you to work and learning opportunities.

LinkedIn is a great free tool and I encourage all professionals to use it and also to connect with me! https://www.linkedin.com/in/amandaleelacey/ 

Amanda Lacey