Why you need to invest your time in LinkedIn

Why do you need a LinkedIn profile?

LinkedIn can be a powerful tool for professionals, business owners, lead generation, and expressing company culture. Whilst it can be exceptionally important for job seekers and job hunters it is much more than that, it is also a great tool for inserting yourself into topics relevant to your niche, expressing yourself professionally and celebrating your own achievements online.

How you and others present yourselves on LinkedIn directly impacts the perception of the organisation you work for, or indeed about your own personal integrity and authenticity if you work for yourself. It is the social network that most often appears at the top of Google search results, this alone makes your profile more important than you might realise. It is also now seen as a business card i.e. a way to exchange connections when you meet someone.

Your personal profile

Having both a profile image and banner image will make you instantly more likely to attract attention on LinkedIn, Your profile is fourteen times more likely to be viewed with a profile picture. Your personal photo should be professional, not a logo, an animal, words, or other random picture and be of yourself. If you’re lucky enough to have a professional headshot that is brilliant otherwise a nice photo of your head and shoulders is perfect. Other things to consider are:

Be consistent with your banner image
Attention grabbing and in line with your brand.
Let it convey what you do professionally – ensure your job title is understandable. If it contains uncommon acronyms, spell them out. If your job title contains jargon, change it.

If you have some close professional connections on LinkedIn, do ask them to recommend you if you feel this is appropriate. Many LinkedIn users read recommendations with great interest and respect the opinions of others.

Your summary section – About Me

Your “Summary/About” section is the one place you can define yourself in your own words, free of start dates and titles, whether you use it to put career choices in context, highlight your biggest achievements, or show off your personality, the summary is your chance to put your best self out there.

It strengthens your first impression in a way no other Profile section can.

It should be comprehensive but easy to understand. Write in the first person and make sure you appear confident, impressive but not boastful. Ask someone to review your summary before you make your profile public for a second opinion – others are often better placed to judge the tone of your summary.

Finally, use the ‘specialties’ section to add all the key-words relevant to your role. If you’re an accountant for example, you might list your key-words along the lines of “management accounting, budgeting, forecasting, fixed assets, inventory control”.

The power of LinkedIn

It is valuable for preparing for interviews, e.g researching background of interviewers at the same time as being a significant shop window, in fact in many ways more important than a CV.

It is worth noting that many firms and recruiters use this platform as their initial sourcing tool with posted roles often having an auto apply function which uploads your profile, meaning first impressions really do count, so trying to avoid your LinkedIn profile being your Achilles heel can be critical. Remember, ‘once posted never forgotten’. Whilst we all have our own opinions, considered polite respectful relevant debate is a skill that should perhaps be practised on a business platform. Don’t reply in haste, or post in a hurry without sense checking your content.

What else is important to watch on your profile?

Add information to your ‘Status update’ section regularly – at least once a week. The purpose here is to attempt to capture your connections’ attention.
Perhaps talk about a project you’re working on, an expert view or even some recent thought-leadership relevant to your job and industry.
List your current job but remember to list any non-executive or official advisory positions too. People will respect this breadth of activity.
In terms of your previous jobs, if you have more than one you’d like to broadcast, perhaps only list the last two or the two which have been most significant, relevant or maybe prestigious. That said, if you’re proud of your career history, list them all. Many people search for ex-colleagues or experts by using the ‘company’ search criteria and this could lead to interesting enquiries, conversations and depth of your network.
List all your education. Some people place major value on academic qualifications. This might make the difference between someone interested in getting in touch or otherwise.
Under ‘interests’ try and give a little information about what you do out of work. People will find this interesting. Perhaps don’t list your favourite football team or activities that some people might find objectionable, but if you’re an ice skater, or love cookery, this could just start a conversation.
Give people material to use to make contact. Personal posts can give an insight into the person you are and what outside of work is important to you and how that has potentially shaped both you and your career. It strengthens your first impression in a way no other Profile section can.
All content should be comprehensive but easy to understand. Write in the first person and make sure you appear confident, impressive but not boastful. Ask someone to review your summary before you make your profile public for a second opinion – others are often better placed to judge the tone of your summary.
Finally, use the ‘specialties’ section to add all the key-words relevant to your role. If you’re an accountant for example, you might list your key-words along the lines of “management accounting, budgeting, forecasting, fixed assets, inventory control”.

Other things to consider

Join Groups on LinkedIn by all means but if you join a significant amount, make most of their logos ‘invisible’ on your page – otherwise people will think you have nothing better to do than sit on LinkedIn all day.

Recruiters do review LinkedIn’s skill-based and industry-based groups and monitor the influencers/contributors to discussions. Therefore by joining and participating in these kinds of groups enables you to demonstrate that you are up to date with the latest news/topics in your field, even if you’re currently not working.

Keep your posts on point and professional, because once online they never disappear completely. Don’t post excessively, but be a clear and helpful presence in your key groups. As your discussion contributions accumulate, you will build your credibility, increase the value of your personal brand, and bolster the likelihood of being found.

List all ‘Honours and Awards’. -but if you have many, perhaps only list those most impressive or perhaps restrict this to those achieved in the last few years.

The other key element to note about LinkedIn is that the recent activity levels of an individual (“posting” or “commenting on posts”, but merely ‘liking’posts is not recognised) are tracked by an activity algorithm . Regular activity drives your visibility and importantly drives your profile up the search strings used by recruitment firms or internal recruitment managers.

What to avoid

Content that isn’t professional, for example:

Inappropriate selfies.
Images that damage the reputation of either yourself or the organisation you work for.
Images that contain sensitive customer information or confidential information (be careful of reflections and laptop/computer screens).
Products and rates – this may be considered financial promotion. This would include things like announcing new products – all of this would need to be cleared and approved by your employer before posting.