7 Missed Opportunities in LinkedIn

by | Feb 24, 2018 | Social Media

Are you making the most of your LinkedIn presence?

Don’t overlook these seven often-missed opportunities to increase your effectiveness on LinkedIn.

1. Not completing your profile

The first thing to do in LinkedIn is create a complete profile. Here are great tips on being bold in your LinkedIn profile from the MAKERS Conference.

Be sure to complete every field, until LinkedIn identifies your profile as “all-star.” You don’t have do it all at once. You can set aside time each week to work on one section at a time. Start from the top and work down:

2. Not keeping your profile up to date

Each month, add something new to your profile. Did you start a new job? Take on a new project? Complete a course or a certification? Publish a paper?

If you finished a work project that can be shared publicly, add it to your profile. Maybe it’s a multimedia presentation or a video or a podcast. Just make sure it doesn’t include any company confidential information and that it can be made public.

It was a thrill to see my employer, AT&T, included again on Fortune’s 2018 list of 100 Best Companies to Work For. As a proud member of our Employee Engagement Advisory Board to make the company a great place to work for all, I added the company news release to my LinkedIn profile. (Note: opinions expressed in this blog are my own.)

3. Not customizing your public profile URL

Not personalizing your URL is like using an aol.com email address. It marks you as out of touch and not current.

Customizing your URL gives you a personally branded link to include in event apps where participants share their social media handles, your email signature, your bio if you’re giving a speech, and your resume if you still maintain a separate document from LinkedIn.

This feature uses your name in your LinkedIn URL, rather than a random string of numbers. It will appear like this: linkedin.com/in/yourname or in my case as linkedin.com/in/leachcaroline.

If someone else already has your name, try putting your last name first or adding your middle initial. Make your URL as similar to your other social media handles as you can.

In my case, based on what was available, I use leachcaroline for LinkedIn and Facebook and @caroline_leach for Instagram and Twitter.

4. Not personalizing your professional headline

Right under your name in your LinkedIn profile is your professional headline. It defaults to your current job title. But you can and should change it. Here’s why.

Your headline appears frequently throughout LinkedIn. It’s displayed in search results and when you comment on others’ content.

If you don’t personalize your headline, you’re missing a big opportunity to personally brand yourself.

Here are tips to make the most of your headline by using keywords and benefits statements about you and what you do.

Headlines have been limited to 120 characters. But Wayne Breitbarth shared a new tip about how recent LinkedIn changes benefit you.

If you update your headline in your mobile app (not your desktop), he says, you get 220 characters. As he notes, that 83% more space to tell your story.

5. Not using a background photo

Just as customizing your professional headline helps you better tell your story, so does adding a background photo. This is the photo that appears right above your profile photo.

If you don’t include a customized photo, your profile looks similar to everyone else’s with the standard blue background of connecting points and lines. It doesn’t stand out or attract attention.

Ideally, use a photo you’ve taken yourself that shows the essence of your professional self in an image. Here are other tips on telling your story through your background photo.

6. Not experimenting with content

If you’re not currently sharing updates and articles in LinkedIn, get started by observing what you gravitate toward in your LinkedIn “home” feed. What catches your eye? What makes you want to watch the featured video or click on an article link?

Start to “like” content that reflects your professional interests. Engage further by adding a comment that adds another perspective or asks a follow-up question. When you @mention the author, they’ll be notified of your comment and are more likely to see it and respond it.

Once you’ve done that, you can start experimenting with content of your own. Here are some ideas for sharing an idea, a photo or a video.

I did a month-long experiment to see what would happen when I posted to LinkedIn every weekday for a month. You could experiment by using video, varying types of posts, using different lengths of posts, trying out different hashtags, and so on.

You might be surprised by what you learn, as I was when I dug into my analytics. I learned that posting an inspirational leadership quote along with a striking photo on major holidays rose to the top of my content with the most engagement.

7. Not joining groups

LinkedIn expert Donna Serdoula advises joining the maximum allowed 100 groups, to enhance your visibility. You can follow groups that align with your areas of focus in your career and on LinkedIn.

Beyond that, she takes an interesting contrarian view. Don’t limit your groups to those comprised of colleagues in the same field as you, she advises.

Instead, “think in terms your target audience,” she says in her book on LinkedIn profile optimization. Who do you want to be found by? Recruiters? Colleagues? Potential customers?

Groups are an area I’ll explore in future posts. Why? Recently I posted content in a group and discovered serendipitously a great way to get that content amplified. This will be the topic of my next post, followed by a more detailed exploration of how to make the most of groups.

What other missed opportunities do you see?

Make the Most of Your LinkedIn Headline

by | Apr 8, 2017 | Social Media

When you scroll through your news feed, what grabs your attention? A great headline, of course.

It’s the same with your LinkedIn profile. You can – and should – create a personal headline. Otherwise the default is your current job title.

This is a lost opportunity on prime real estate in your profile. Not only does it display prominently in the mobile version of your profile, but it also appears in a Google search that displays your profile. It helps you stand out when people are searching.

You have 120 characters to describe yourself in a unique and compelling way. You should use every one of them, says personal branding expert William Arruda.

Your headline should share both what you do and how you benefit your target audience. That goes back to your goals for LinkedIn. Do you want to build your professional brand? Develop a reputation as a thought leader in your field? Position yourself as a candidate for your next job?

LinkedIn expert Donna Serdoula outlines two approaches to headlines in her book on LinkedIn Profile Optimization. (Even as the LinkedIn algorithms evolve, this is a great reference book with underlying concepts that are invaluable for personal branding.)

The first is using keywords – words or phrases that describe you and are likely to be used in an internet search. Serdoula suggests asking, “What are the keywords a person might type into LinkedIn search to find you?”

The second is a benefits statement – what you can do for your target audience. Here Serdoula suggests asking, “How do I help individuals and businesses?” and “What benefit do others receive from working with me?”

If you can accomplish both keywords and benefits in 120 characters, that’s even better.

Keyword-Rich Headlines

From my own LinkedIn network, here are some standout keyword headlines:

Shel Holtz – Communication Strategist, Public Speaker, Author, Trainer

Lisa Skeete Tatum – Entrepreneur | Investor

Allison Long – Professional Networker | Career Matchmaker | Connector of Dynamic Teams and Great Talent

Rene Dufrene – Innovative Business Development Executive | Team Leader | Alliance Design, Negotiation & Operation | Cloud Services

Erin Gollhofer – Global Corporate Social Responsibility Professional

Debbie Storey – Published Author | Speaker | Consultant on Leadership, Diversity & Inclusion, Customer Service, Resilience, Courage & Confidence, and Women in Business

Anthony Mirenda – Global Communications Leader | Corporate Reputation | Crisis & Issues Communications

Benefits-Focused Headlines

Also from my LinkedIn network, here are some compelling benefits headlines:

Michael Ambrozewicz – Engaging AT&T employees in how we deliver a mobile and entertainment experience in the U.S.

Amy Posey – Creating powerful leadership development experiences and making work more productive and effective at Peak Teams

Gary Zucker – Helping marketers and researchers make sense of customer feedback to test ideas, build loyalty and grow revenue

Catherine Fisher – Helping people build their professional brand on LinkedIn

Glenn Llopis – Disrupting the status quo and reinventing the way we work

Anat Mahrer – Creating a compelling and unique employee experience

Jon Lara – Delivering employee benefit strategies that enrich participant lives while optimizing company financial results.

How A Headline Evolves

Before writing this post, my headline was “Communications & Marketing Leader in Entertainment & Tech.” My goal was to highlight my functional areas, my level and my industries. Brevity and fitting a headline on two lines for mobile viewing were also priorities.

Then I edited it into a benefits statement that included my employer’s newer industry. “Communications & Marketing Leader in Tech, Media & Telecom helping people and organizations tell their stories.” (Opinions expressed in this blog are my own.)

But that repeated the opening of my summary statement a few lines below the headline. So I went back to what Serdoula calls “a keyword-saturated headline.”

Now my headline has my “VP” title to be more specific than “leader.” It includes AT&T as the name of my employer – a company I’m proud to say was recently named to FORTUNE’s 100 Best Companies to Work For. And it showcases this blog about social media savvy for corporate professionals.

Perhaps this highlights the most important thing about any social media presence – always be changing, evolving and improving. Just like the platforms themselves. And just like life.