Written by When used at its full potential, LinkedIn provides professionals and brands with limitless opportunities to build their network, increase their industry engagement and expand their new business pipeline.
Here is our guide to LinkedIn success for professional profiles:
Complete your profile to 100%
This is very important when creating and maximising the potential of your LinkedIn profile.
Think of your profile like a digital CV, industry profile, and social media platform rolled all into one – you need to come across professional, an expert in your field, approachable and engaging, which can be a hard balance to get right.
When creating or updating your profile, ensure you have added and filled in all the sections and details the profile asks for, such as your past education, work experience, skills, and current job role. The strength and shareability of your profile are increased as you enter more information.
All Star is the highest level, and you can check this on the right-hand side of your profile to highlight the success of your LinkedIn profile and can not be seen by anyone else.
Post a professional image for your profile
It may sound simple but it is something that many people get wrong when trying to build engagement on LinkedIn – make sure you use a professional head and shoulders portrait as your LinkedIn profile picture. People want to connect with people, so adding a profile image will increase your chances of getting noticed, adds credibility to your profile, and is a great way to highlight your personality.
Don’t forget to utilise your space for a header image. This is an additional way to promote the business you work for or your interests.
Craft compelling content for your profile
Here are some top tips for crafting a compelling profile summary and LinkedIn posts:
- Use clear and simple language – avoid jargon and acronyms.
- Communicate concrete results you and your company provide to your clients.
- Avoid hype and superlatives. For example, don’t claim you’re “the greatest” at something. Stick to facts and measurable achievements.
- Format the copy to make it easy to read and skim over – use emojis and spacing to break up any large walls of text.
- Include a call-to-action – should they check out your website or contact you directly to enquire about a booking? Let them know.
Make sure your content is ‘on brand’
On LinkedIn, you will be acting as an ambassador for your brand, whether you realise it or not. When sharing content relating directly to the company you work for, it is worth ensuring your message is reflecting the brand’s values and sentiment and doesn’t contradict any existing messaging. This doesn’t mean that you can’t be yourself on the platform or can’t add your own personality into your content, it just means you need to be aware of any ongoing campaigns or brand stances before you post.
If you are ever unsure, just pop a message over to your marketing and PR team for their support and advice.
Accepting and replying to new connections
LinkedIn is the perfect place to not only find your ideal clients and showcase your expertise in your field but also build relationships with your connections. While you can quickly hit Accept in response to a new connection request and move on to other tasks, this won’t help you get to know or build a relationship with your new connection.
Take a minute to reply personally to any new connection requests you decide to accept, even if it’s just a simple ‘great to connect with you’ message. And, of course, click Ignore if you don’t want that person in your network.
Follow industry experts & join relevant groups
LinkedIn is a fantastic platform to keep up to date with the latest news or articles within your industry. Follow relevant industry groups, associations, trade media, journalists, suppliers, and influential figures to ensure the algorithm shares relevant posts within your news feed.
Use hashtags
Similar to Instagram and Twitter, hashtags are searchable on LinkedIn and can significantly increase the visibility of your posts. When using hashtags on LinkedIn, make sure they’re relevant to your content, your company, and your industry. You should also aim to use no more than 5–6 hashtags per post (including long-form content).
Customise you LinkedIn URL
When you create your account, LinkedIn generates a random string of numbers to associate with your profile. Instead of your name, you are Profile #176048177908 and unless you change it, that random number is what appears in your LinkedIn profile URL like this: https://www.linkedin.com/in/176048177908/.
To look more professional and become easily searchable if anyone Googles you or details similar to yours, LinkedIn allows you to customize your profile URL. You can do that by going to your profile, clicking Edit public profile & URL on the sidebar on the right-hand side, and then clicking Edit URL. Ideally, you want to use some combination of your full name, which may need to be separated by hyphens.
Be active
To ensure your profile is at the forefront of the platform, regular engagement is key. Try to share content and participate in the conversation by adding comments, sharing, taking part in polls, or just simply liking other people’s posts. Regular engagement will further support the algorithm in providing you relevant recommendations based on your interests and connections.
Don’t forget to network! If you are attending an event or you have a prospect in mind, send them a friendly, professional LinkedIn note before or after the meeting. This ensures you are building a further relationship with that person without having to hit them with a hard sale.
Measure & benchmark
If you want to see how you and your profile are doing on the platform, you can use LinkedIn Social Selling Index (SSI) to calculate the success of your efforts and learn how you can boost your activity organically.
You can get your score for free using the following link – just make sure you are logged in to your relevant LinkedIn profile: https://business.linkedin.com/sales-solutions/social-selling/the-social-selling-index-ssi
You will then find a dashboard of your profile scores, which are then broken down into four components:
At the bottom of the dashboard, you will be able to benchmark your profile against others in your industry and with similar job titles to you. Use SSI to see how you can continue to grown and further your efforts moving forward to become a LinkedIn success.
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If you would like to find out how we can achieve LinkedIn success for your team and brand to support you in reaching your marketing objectives, get in touch with us today.