6 ways to make your LinkedIn personal profile stand out

Last week, LinkedIn Expert and my occasional partner-in-crime, Viveka von Rosen, gave us Six ways to make your LinkedIn company page stand out. As promised, we are back this week with six easy things you should do to update your LinkedIn personal page.

LinkedIn users, views and engagement are at an all-time high during this work from home time. And, according to Viveka, these are six things you should be doing right now to optimize your LinkedIn profile and increase engagement and visibility during this high traffic moment on the platform. It’s a perfect time to solidify your brand or create a whole new one!

1. Customize Your personal banner or background image

Your background image should be relevant to what is going on in the world now or your industry. It should reflect on how you help people. State it right in your background image. You can see what I have done here www.LinkedIn.com/in/LinkedInExpert using a template from www.VengresoBanner.com.

2. Update you professional headline

That little section underneath your picture? That usually says, “Title at Company?” That’s your professional headline, and you have 120 characters (220 characters on your mobile device) to expand on that by letting people know who you help and how you help them. And if you can mention something relevant to what is going on today, add it in as well.

Mine is: “Helping #SalesProfessionals Create More QUALIFIED & QUALITY Conversations when #WFH | LinkedIn Expert, Author & Speaker | Forbes Top 20 Most Influential | #PersonalBranding | LinkedIn Learning Author | CVO | Vengreso.com.”  

3. Update your photo

These days, you might be seeing more people on Zoom than you did in your “real life” on the job and in the office. The last thing you want to do is create a sense of dissonance between your profile photo and what someone sees on Zoom. I’m not saying you have to wear your sweats in the picture– but don’t use the image from your 2005 glamour photoshoot either. Make sure that your LinkedIn profile photo is an actual representation of what you look like now.

4. Expand upon who you help in About and Summary section

Your Summary or About section should expand on who you help and how you help them. Your profile needs to be a resource — not just a resume. You have 2,000 characters to let people know who you help, and how you solve their points of pain/needs/desires/problems/concerns. You can also include a brief — one or two sentence testimonial — to your Summary.

Also, share any well-known companies that you have worked with, and your successes with those clients. And, add a clear call to action as well as your contact information at the bottom of this section.

5. Add relevant media to the Featured section

Remember, your profile needs to be a resource rather than a resume. An easy way to shift into resource-mode is to add media to your Featured and Experience sections. If you have a relevant blog post, a LinkedIn post, an article, a PowerPoint, or documents that you can upload or share, especially something pertinent to these disruptive times, definitely want to add those to your profile. You can always delete them later!

6. Update your Contact Info section

Make sure your Contact info section has the latest links to your website, to your calendar, to your blog, to your podcast, to whatever is you. You have three opportunities to share a link and drive people to your business. Make the best use of these!  

Doing these six things with your LinkedIn profile will attract more people to your page and your brand. Additionally, it shows potential clients and work partners how you solve their needs, allows them to engage with you and build your business even when things are in the upside-down!

Bonus tip: Connect with both of us on LinkedIn, but remember, always make the invitation personal!

Viveka von Rosen

Dayna Steele