By Mary Jo King, NCRW, NCOPE
Most social media profiles have a lot in common. Get one in good shape, and your content can be adapted to other sites. LinkedIn is a great place to begin because it has become such a large business community. It offers a wealth of information, it is rich with job posts, and frequented by more than 95% of recruiters. A well-developed LinkedIn profile will fare well in search engines and make it easier for employers and customers to find you.
The Basics:
Make your profile 100% complete. The more vigorous your profile, the higher you will rank in searches.
Display your personal photo. Use the same professional photo you use everywhere else. This is not the place for graphics, wedding photos, or your dog.
Brand your headline! That space beneath your name is your Profile Headline. It will appear in search results next to your name, and follow where you lead on LinkedIn. This is the single most important line in your whole profile, in terms of its contribution to LinkedIn search algorithms.
Create or share interesting, relevant posts. Participate in groups and conversations on your feed. LinkedIn uses artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) to measure everything you do, so use these opportunities to advance your brand. Bonus: Making weekly content adjustments to your profile improves your visibility, too.
Your summary–the About section–should be packed with keywords and address the scope and scale of your unique value proposition. This is your chance to tell the world who you are and what you can do.
Use keywords extensively throughout your profile. LinkedIn remains one of the only sites that still reflects the density of profile keywords in ranking search results.
Complete the Skills section. This section was created especially for recruiters, so it contributes heavily to search results. Fill all 100 skill fields with keywords and keyword phrases. Use keywords already in the system rather than creating your own.
Fill in those job descriptions with key functions and accomplishments. If we wrote your résumé, the professional experience content we created for you will perform beautifully on LinkedIn. That said, you should avoid publishing any proprietary information about privately held companies.
Include the year of your graduation with your degree. Without it, you may be excluded from recruiter searches.
Get and give recommendations. You need to do this in order to get your profile to 100% status. The other benefits of peer recommendations are obvious, yes?
Get connected with others. Adding connections has an exponential effect in search results. Any fewer than 100 connections looks as if you’re not serious, and algorithms overlook you with fewer than 50.
Claim Your Personal URL. When you sign up to LinkedIn you are provided a public URL, which you can then include on your email signature and other profiles. You can customize this when you edit your account settings. Claiming your name here is one of the first things you should do, and be sure to do it before someone else does!
A LinkedIn profile is more than just a résumé. This is your opportunity to communicate more about who you are and the value you bring. You can paste in content like presentations and videos, or link to your website, blog, or digital portfolio. Use your status updates to let the world know what you’re working on right now.
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