10 Tips on How to Create an Informative LinkedIn Profile

LinkedIn is a WONDERFUL place to connect, build referrals and build an interactive business card. Creating strong profiles; individual, group and company, are key differentiators in attracting the attention of important people who are searching for you, your company and your groups online.

Gather your professional experience, interests, and capabilities, and use the Top 10 Tips below to help you begin designing your profile.

1. Craft an informative profile headline

Your profile headline gives people a quick, short and memorable way to understand who you are in a professional context. Your headline becomes a slogan for your professional brand, such as “Conversations to Cash Creator” or “Automated Social Media Methods.” Check out the profiles of peers, competitors, thought leaders and recent alums you admire for ideas and inspiration.

2. Upload an appropriate photo

Select a professional, high-quality headshot of you alone. Alert – Family Reunion photos, party, or cute pics of animals and babies do not fit the professional environment of LinkedIn.

3. Boast about your education

List all the institutions you’ve attended, provide highlights of your activities, and include study abroad programs and summer institutes. Don’t be shy— your LinkedIn profile is an appropriate place to show off your hard work and any awards you have won academically.

4. Cultivate a professional summary statement

Your summary statement should bring to mind the value individuals, companies or groups receive by actively dialoguing with you or reading your content on LinkedIn. The first few paragraphs should be concise and confident about value, goals, how you solve a particular pain, short list of your qualifications, and how you address pains and challenges for an industry. Remember to include relevant industry needs and pains, any volunteer work, and extracurricular activity that demonstrates your credibility, creativity and thought leadership. Present your summary statement in short blocks of text for easy reading.

5. Use Keywords to fill your “Specialties” section

“Specialties” is the place to include key words and phrases that an individual might type into a search engine to find a person like you. The best place to find relevant keywords is to look at example job listings, groups and companies. You are looking for similarities between your individual, group and company profile to other individual, group and company profiles.  Choose similar key words.

6. Update your status on a weekly basis

A great way to enhance your professional image is to update your status at least once a week. This helps you stay on other people’s radar too. Share about events you’re attending, key projects you’ve completed, specialized books you’re reading, a recent promotion or award you received or any other news. Think about what you might talk about with a peer if you were on a “catch-up” phone call.

7. Show your connectedness with LinkedIn Groups and badges

Build and show-off your professionalism by joining “Groups,” following companies and displaying badges. Display the “Groups” and relevant badges on your profile. This helps create a desire for other people to connect with you, along with helping you to quickly connect with people with whom you have something in common. When joining groups, think about: your university’s LinkedIn group, large industry groups, career groups, sports groups, or non-profit groups. TIP: when searching on group, leave the group search area blank, and hit search, the groups with the highest memberships will show on top.

8. Collect third-party-recommendations

Nothing builds credibility like endorsements. Get at least one recommendation associated with each position you have held. Think about requesting recommendations from professors, thought leaders, clients, current and past employers, colleagues and professional mentors.

9. Claim your exclusive LinkedIn URL

To increase the results and your “search ability” when people type your name into a search engine, set your LinkedIn profile to “public” and claim a unique URL for your profile (for example: www.linkedin.com/in/yourname | www.linkedin.com/in/margebieler). Include your LinkedIn URL in your email signature.

10. Share your work

A final way to enhance your LinkedIn profile is to add examples of your work you have done for your clients.  Share your templates, blogs, and showcase your writings, design work, media interviews or other accomplishments by displaying URLs or adding LinkedIn Applications. Direct people to your website, blog, or Twitter feed. Through Applications, you can share a PowerPoint or store a downloadable version of your presentations, videos or resume. TIP: If you use SlideShare, you can post content directly into GROUPS.

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Special Thanks to David Kalstrom of Outbound Excellence for helping me create my LinkedIn Profile!