Friday 12 December 2014

15 Tips for a Powerful LinkedIn Profile

Not getting the traction you'd like to see on your LinkedIn page? Try these 15 tips for a powerful profile.

1. Segment Your Connections. 
This simple tip can save you a mountain of work later. Let's say you're on LinkedIn to meet:

  • Customers
  • JV partners
  • Media contacts

If you don't segment your connections, they're all going to be lumped into a folder LinkedIn calls "Untagged." Then when you want to contact potential JV partners, you'll have no idea which ones those are.

So you'll want to segment all of your connections - new and old - into appropriate folders to take maximum advantage of LinkedIn's ability to hook you up with the right people.

2. Certain Keyword Placement has a Bigger Effect Than Others. 
Keywords in your name, your headline, your company name, your job title and your skills rank higher in the search results than keywords in other sections. Be sure to use a variety of keywords and terms in describing what you do, and also offer to show up in a variety of search results.

3. Don't Annoy Your Contacts. 
When you're updating your LinkedIn profile, your contacts are alerted to every little change as you make them unless you do the following: Open your privacy controls and turn off activity broadcasts, and change the setting for "select who can see your activity feed" to "only you."

4. Widen Your Scope. 
Join groups so you can connect with people who are in your target audience but are not contacts. Then reach out to these people and ask them to join your network.

5. If You're Ambitious... 
Join 50 LinkedIn groups which can boost your ranking.

6. Highlight Your Best Info. 
You can add, remove and rearrange entire sections of your profile any way you prefer to lead with your strengths. When in edit mode, hover your mouse over the double sided arrow that's next to the edit link for each section and you'll see a 4 arrowed icon. Click, drag and drop it to another position in your profile. Or customize your profile with personalized sections of your own making.

7. Hit The Magic Number. 
Your goal is to get at least 500 connections, for two reasons. First, it widens your audience. Second, that magic number 500 has a psychological impact on people viewing your profile. Once you hit 500, aim for 1,000 for the same reasons.

8. Use Your Aliases. 
Maybe you've changed your name or people commonly misspell your name. Or maybe you've got nicknames or more than one version for your first name, such as Dave and David. Include all of these names in your summary to make it easier for people to find you.

9. Accept Messages From Anyone. 
It used to be that LinkedIn members could only contact you if they were connected to you or if they purchased InMail messages. But now Premium Users are automatically opted into an Open Profile setting, which will let anyone message you for free. And as a Premium member, you can always select to switch this off at any time.

10. Track Who Is Viewing Your Profile. 
Premium users can now access a list of who's viewed their profile for the last 90 days. You might want to contact some of these members back and start a conversation.

11. Distinguish Yourself From Competitors. 
Where appropriate, integrate your personal point of view into your summary and possibly your experience. Then join groups where you can share your point of view as it relates to your expertise. You'll stand apart from the crowd and attract your own tribe of like-thinkers.

12. Use Premium As Needed. 
If you want to reach out to people but you can only contact them through Premium, then sign up by the month. Do all the reaching out you need to do and then cancel your premium subscription.

13. Wait. 
Don't reach out to potential contacts until your profile is sparkling. You only get one chance to make a first LinkedIn impression, so make it a good one. But don't let this be a reason to procrastinate, either. Set a deadline to get your profile together and then immediately start reaching out to others.

14. Create a Company Page. 
If you have a company, you need a company page.

15. Publish Company Status Updates. This gives LinkedIn users more reason to follow your company page. Plus, you can use segmentation to tailor your updates to specific audiences as well


Source: http://EzineArticles.com/8584260

1 comment:

  1. If I'd known I would have made much more effort in advertising the business there. Thank you for sharing this useful info. I expect your articles in the future

    Social skips

    ReplyDelete