In my opinion, the most powerful social media profile you can use is the LinkedIn profile.
Most powerful that is, if you are looking to do more business and/or achieve your professional goals.
There’s a certain mindset LinkedIn members have when they spend time there.
They don’t browse through pictures and videos of their friends.
They don’t go there to share 140 characters of their current status.
And they don’t go there to watch panda bears sneeze or talking dogs say “I love you”.
Although other social networking sites have their place and purpose, none of them have the professionally directed power of LinkedIn.
LinkedIn means business!
Your LinkedIn profile says everything about who you are professionally.
And since it tends to rank well on Google for your name, people will read your LinkedIn profile when they want to do research on you, your product, service, or company.
In other words, what you say on your profile will have an impact on the amount of business you do on LinkedIn.
Here are 7 ways to enhance the copy on your profile to ensure that you get everything you want from LinkedIn:
1. It’s all about the headline
Headlines are everything in newspapers, magazines, and on blogs.
They are just as important on your LinkedIn profile, because the headline is the first thing that shows up anytime someone does a search online. A simple way to ensure your headline doesn’t suck is to follow a simple formula.
Tell people specifically:
- Who you are
- Who you help, and
- How you help them
Tell them in the fewest words possible. Make your headline compelling and you’ll increase your chances of more meaningful profile views.
2. Get personal
Although LinkedIn is the “professional” social networking site, you want to reserve the first part of your “Summary” to add a personal note about yourself.
People don’t want to look at a resume with bullet points of past sales achievements (barf!), they want to know a little bit about your background. They want to know who you are.
To achieve this, add a personal intro about your goals, what you’re passionate about, and what you love to do in life.
This small touch of transparency will help you both build a personal brand and connect on a personal level with anyone who views your profile.
3. Spell check. And then check again.
You probably have no clue how many deals are happening day in and day out on LinkedIn.
I hear success stories all of the time about people landing their dream job, getting hired for a major consulting deal, finding 7 figure investors, receiving major sponsorships, selling out tickets to live events, and more.
The potential for what you can accomplish on LinkedIn is nearly unlimited.
However, I also hear about people who are completely turned off by a prospect with a bare-bones profile, or worse — spelling mistakes. Make sure to spell check everything and have others review it to give you their feedback.
This small step could make all the difference in your interactions on LinkedIn. You know what they say about those first impressions.
4. Make a call to action
One of the biggest mistakes you can make is not having a call to action on your LinkedIn profile.
If you spend all of this time crafting a great message but don’t lead the viewer anywhere, all your work will have been for nothing.
In your “Summary”, or in your LinkedIn welcome video make sure to tell people what site they should go to for more information, what number to call to get a free consultation, or the best way to email you.
Don’t leave your potential customers and clients hanging. Give them a place to go next (and a reason to go there).
5. Social proof is powerful proof
Social proof helps influence others into making a “buying” decision.
LinkedIn makes this step easy by providing 3 primary sections to add social proof:
- Education. Adding the college or university you attended provides your education credentials, and increases the value of your personal brand.
- Awards. This section is the one place you can brag about yourself a little. Include any past accomplishments or industry awards you can think of that will increase the value of your profile.
- Recommendations. The more recommendations you have on your profile the better. This is the best form of social proof, as it conveys credibility and authority. The best way to receive recommendations is to give them first.
6. Improve your search rankings
If you want to get more leads and sales, then the easiest thing you can do is become easily found on LinkedIn for keywords in your niche.
Think about what people would be searching for on Google to find your business, service, or product (for example, mine would be “sports” or “LinkedIn Tips”). Make sure you add your keywords throughout your LinkedIn profile in five main places.
Learn more about where to include your keywords and increase your LinkedIn SEO here.
7. Stand out from the crowd
With close to 130 million LinkedIn profiles, many of them look the same.
Don’t join the herd of boring “glamour shot” profiles. Instead, do something creative in your copy to market yourself on LinkedIn, stand out, and keep people coming back for more.
Add LinkedIn’s blog application, sync it with your twitter updates, or include other advanced applications to help your profile stand out from the rest.
Take your profile to the next level
As LinkedIn continues to grow in numbers and gain more media attention, it will prove to add more value to your brand and business.
If you want to get the most out of your efforts with LinkedIn, take the time right now to implement these 7 steps and watch your profile take off.
About the Author: Lewis Howes is the author of two books on the topic of LinkedIn and the creator of the #1 LinkedIn training course Linked Influence. Receive his free LinkedIn marketing tips and connect with Lewis at lewishowes.com.
Reader Comments (83)
This article made me realize I have been neglecting the most profitable social media platform in my SMM plan.
I’m gonna go and implement these tips right now! Thanks for the kick in the pants.
I’m going to have to agree and say that in the past I really underestimated LinkedIn.
It’s a different game, but it can bring results just like any other well utilized platform.
Glad I could show you guys the light 😉
I am glad I found this blog. I hope some day I will achieve the same level of quality postings. I recently started a for newbies to help them get started.
I agree that LinkedIn stands out in a positive way. I only became a bit more active there because I am very much involved in another network. I prefer working only 1 on or 2 media very active at the time. And occasionally post on others and use share options.
“Although other social networking sites have their place and purpose, none of them have the professionally directed power of LinkedIn.”
And that is what makes LinkedIn unique. It’s the professional social network which means people use it to conduct business on purpose! They want to connect with your brand/company in a real way, not just by Liking you on Facebook and then disappearing into the void.
Yeah,
I have ignored Linkedin for far too long.
There have been events and job fairs regarding Linkedin on my campus and all throughout the year. Professors constantly keep bringing it up, and students who appear to have a good head on their shoulders and goal-oriented are all connected to Linkedin.
This seems to be my call.
Love the idea of a LinkedIn welcome video!
One of the most productive tricks for me has been to follow up with the folks who have been stalking my profile – reaching out to them directly and asking if I can help them with their copywriting needs. If someone is looking, chances are they have business to distribute, right?
That’s correct Ruth… when people are “searching for answers” it’s usually suggest a pain point they are going through… the best time to get a sale or a new client is during their biggest pain moments.
If your in Business, or serious about your careers, LinkedIn is something that can not be ignored. You can get work, business, and also interact with high profile people. Extremely powerful platform. Thanks for the tips
Lewis, thanks for this post. I have your course and it really helps me in crafting my overall linkedin strategies.
Thanks Ted… glad you are enjoying the course 🙂
It is ironic that in the very place (point 3) where you urge careful proofreading there is a major typo. The word “know” is apparently left out! I could help you with your proofreading in the future at a very competitive rate!
Remember: there’s always (almost) one more typo!
Lewis, because of your tips and Seans, I’m ranked like # 2 for freelance copywriter on Linkedin. Took about 5 minutes to do. Thanks man!
Love it!
Lewis and his partner Sean are the masters at Linkedin.
If you dont know them, you will.
Keep crushing it
That’s interesting! Good for you. I had no idea LinkedIn ranks people like that. Can someone tell me how I access that info?
I thought I was very well-versed on LinkedIn – in fact, I got my first client through it. But the only call to action in my profile is my company website link. The idea of having a call to action video is a new – and really great one – to me. Thanks for the tips!
Lewis-
You know well the results I’ve experienced applying some of your strategies. Thanks for the great reminders here.
As for recommendations, I’ve benefited from recommendations from industry leaders, but have benefited MORE by writing recommendations for others, the combination of internal linking and social equity that occurs is worth the time. Are you finding recommendations powerful as well? Any gotchas about writing recommendations you can share?
-Travis
nice Post,
in my opinion linedin profiles are a key to online entrepreneurs !!
Thanks for the info, a lot of people think that because Facebook is so big, its the best place to be. Linked in however is about doing business, everyone there wants to do business, everyone on Facebook wants to see pictures of their friends and are looking for entertainment. Totally different audience, thanks for the post.
I’ve been tweaking my LinkedIn presence since they made the app quite a bit better. It still seems like it is primarily used as a twitterfeed though. Few seem to respond to communication through it while they do with direct email or twitter.
I’ll keep adding to my network still. 🙂
Peace,
@vinylart
Before Copyblogger published this article, I was the #1 person result for the term “Copywriting.” That’s only because I attended your webinar with Derek Halpern and did 5 minutes’ work on my profile.
That just proves you really know what you’re talking about, Lewis. 🙂
I get something very useful out of every one of your posts. I hope you’re making loads of money on your paid content. I updated my profile recently but just went back and, one by one, tweaked it based on your suggestions. Better than adding it to your to-do list! I also added WordPress to my profile a while back, which I didn’t know I could do till I saw it on someone else’s profile. Helps to see what others are doing sometimes.
I’m so excited that Lewis will personally be helping Copyblogger Media with its LinkedIn strategy.
Right Lewis?
Lewis?
😉
I’ll take that as a maybe. Great to have you showing up on Copyblogger (need to do that more often).
When are you coming to Philly? Have any contacts with the Eagles/Sixers/Flyers to do an event in 2012?
I love so much that you have “use spell check” in here!
“LinkedIn Means Business” – totally agree. LinkedIn is THE most important social networking platform I use for that very reason. The folks we connect with on LinkedIn are there to do business.
Great tips. The idea of creating a welcome video is fantastic!
All of these are great suggestions – thanks for sharing. I’ll admit I haven’t used LinkedIn nearly as much as I probably should; like many others, I’ve had some difficulty figuring out where LinkedIn should fit into my social strategy, seeing as how the site is primarily for job seekers, so finding a way to promote our business and fit LI into our marketing model has been difficult. But guides like these definitely help point people like me in the right direction, so I appreciate your taking the time out to put together such a detailed outline.
Very good tips on a great social networking platform.
Thanks for the great tips! My LinkedIn profile has been looking a little neglected, and this was the push I needed to make some significant changes.
One thing I would add to the point on recommendations as social proof is that if you need more, don’t be afraid to send a polite message asking for one. As I’ve learned time and time again, a happy client will be glad to write you a quick testimonial, so don’t why away from making the request. Ask and, more often than not, you shall receive.
I have always used social media to expand a brand that can one day be sold entirely with less emphasis on a personal face but this is giving me a pause to somehow incorporate linked in thanks for that.
Great post. The social proof makes all the difference, yet it’s so easy to forget to ask for testimonials.
My profile only started to pull in business when I’d got a few glowing recommendations to add to it.
My favourite LinkedIn marketing tactic is to use inmail as an ice-breaker to tell targeted contacts to look out for a sales letter and bespoke portfolio in the next day’s mail. It increases response by a huge margin.
Interesting angle. Agree with the spell checking, they are really annoying! I too didn’t appreciate the importance of LinkedIn, concentrating more on Twitter, but will revisit to see how my profile can be improved.
From a business perspective, I would avoid tying up LinkedIn and Twitter, as the content for Twitter (especially some of the conversations) can be inappropriate.
Wow, i have been on Linked-in for years, but I actually newer paid attention to any of these 7 steps, but reading your post made me realize that I have a bit of catching up to do.
I especially liked the part, where you explain how the Linked-in users are and have to be addressed compared to users of other Social networks, which of course makes perfectly sense!
Excellent presentation, nice links to detail content, & great advice!
I’ve had a LinkedIn profile for almost 2 yrs now and this write up makes it clear that I haven’t used it to my advantage. Facebook may have popularity but LinkedIn is a great entrepreneurial platform! I’m overwhelmed by the all the ideas coming to mind.
…really great post!
Awesome Lewis!
Thanks for the tips.
-AJ
Hey Lewis! Went through your list and updated my LinkedIn profile. I was a terrible copywriter three years ago when I originally created my profile. Thanks.
I recently started using LinkedIn am still learning the ropes, really appreciate your tips here, will definitely check out more of what you have to say on LinkedIn seeing that you have a lot of experience on it.
I have a LinkedIn account and never use it. I’m going to spend some time on it next week.
Thanks for the great post.
– Jennifer
Excellent article, I shall be paying more attention to LinkedIn. Spending too much time getting lost in the other social media vacuums!
Wonderful tips! You’ve inspired me to put more time into my profile.
Once nice technique for tuning your Linkedin profile is to put your company name (eBiz ROI, Inc. in our case) as the name for the link in your company website instead of the default “Company Website” as the anchor text. This serves three purposes:
1.) Reinforces your brand
2.) helps you rank for your brand which all companies, big and small should strive for #1 position on the popular search engines for their brand. This is especially important for newer company with websites less than 6 months old that might be in the dreaded “sandbox” and not have share of voice on the first page for their brand name and
3.) Sets your listing apart as most are not aware of this technique and accept the default Company Name as anchor text.
cool, Rick.
I have not done a thing with my Linkedin profile. Time to get to work. Thank you!
I would be very grateful if you can help me – How do I add video to my Linked-In profile?
Can you recommend a good book on Linked-In?
Thank you!
It seems easy, but to stand out from the rest takes some creativity.
It’s takes something to really stand out from the crowd!
Great tips!
I would add one more tip of my own:
# 8 Add it to your Email Signature – Actively increase you network by placing your profile in every email you send. We at WiseStamp even added a specific Email App to make it easy for you – Check this out http://apps.wisestamp.com/emailapps/linkedin
Josh
Well, this one kicked my butt a little bit… I am headed over to LinkedIn now as I have some work to do…
Thanks for the tips Lewis, I’m going to try to improve my keywords throughout my LinkedIn profile right now and see what changes that has if any, might make a case study out of it.
I’m not usually moved to write a thank you for a great tip, but I’m not usually moved to actually deploy the tip(s). Impressive post and impressive motivation. I actually implemented these ideas. Feeling pretty good. Next stop… the LinkedIn video.
These are very good ways to implement.. I hope it is more helpful to LinkedIn users to turn their profile into social media marketing.
Like many of the others here, I’m realizing how much work I still have to do on Linked In. These are great suggestions.
Have only just joined LinkedIn and was slightly puzzled about what exactly to do next. I asked that question of Google and this page came up. Think I might have struck gold in my first minute of prospecting.
Thank you very much.
Lewis, great stuff! The SEO portion is invaluable….I am off to ready your SEO posting now!
Thank again for the great info, I am looking forward to implementing it. GL!
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