Do you know what you’re doing with linkedIn? The reason why I am asking this question are two reasons, really.
First, I really didn’t know what I was doing with LinkedIn until now, and that’s why my profile really sucked.
Second, while browsing around LinkedIn profiles I realized that many bloggers and online marketers who are using LinkedIn, don’t use this tool to their best advantage, to say the least.
Interestingly, it seems that people who’s job is not to be online do a better job with their LinkedIn profile, than we do. Something is not right here!
Guys, if you are reading this, and have a linkedIn account go check it out and see how your profile looks like. If you don’t have one yet, make sure you start one now!
For example, I’ve seen online marketers making mistakes such as saying saying things like “I’m no expert”, “I’m not an expert in…” Really? Is this what you really want people to see you as when they look into the summary of your profile? “A non-expert?” I think not. And this is why…
LinkedIn is a Site where you Introduce you as an Expert
I don’t know if you are fully aware of this yet, but LinkedIn is where real professionals hang out. Forget about Facebook and Twitter, here. LinkedIn is where you need to BE if you want to be taken more seriously as a business owner, and entrepreneur.
Through LinkedIn you can network with professionals like you, and find people who need your services, your expertise and your business. Not the time to tell them that you’re no expert.
If go and look at career people or even those who just have a regular job, they make themselves seen as expert at what they do. So why don’t you?
Being seen as an expert can only serve you well on LinkedIn. Being seen as someone who has no clue, will not be to your advantage on LinkedIn.
Here are few tips to make your LinkedIn profile work better for you, rather than against you. Because, one think is sure, if it doesn’t work for you, then it will work against you.
Write a Professional Sounding Profile
Make sure that you have a clear and professional looking profile summary. The summary of your skills is the first thing that people see when they land on your profile page, so make sure it reflects well who you are, what you do and what’s your expertise.
Remember, you are not bragging here, you are just making sure that you are not losing your time on LinkedIn but present yourself as the professional that you are.
Add links to videos throughout your Profile
I just added a couple of videos on my profile, which until now I had no idea I could do on LinkedIn. I’m not talking about posting videos in your news feed, but right under your profile summary and experience. I think that’s a really cool feature that you should take advantage of if it’s appropriate for you.
I have one at the end of my summary, as shown below, and two more in my experience section.
Claim your Costumed URL
If you haven’t created you costumed URL, yet, your linkedIn link might look something like this: http://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=51916069&trk=nav_responsive_tab_profile. Not very attractive, and way too long.
LinkedIn allows you to create a vanity URL that you can share around instead of that long ugly one.
To do this, hover the mouse over your avatar (top right hand side) go to Privacy & Settings. It will prompt you to re-inter your password. Click on Profile – Edit Your Profile, and finally on Customize Your Public Profile.
This is my customized public profile URL: http://www.linkedin.com/in/sylvianenucciowriterandcoach. Much better, isn’t it?
While you’re at it you might want to get your own LinkedIn badge as well, and use it on your blog, website, emails, etc.
In order to do this, just click on Create a profile badge, chose the design you want, copy the code and past it wherever you want.
Here is mine.
Edit Your Websites Links
You can add up to 3 links of your blogs or websites, and you can use an anchor text rather than the URL to make it more attractive.
In order to do this, click on edit profile… than click edit contact info.
Click on pencil icon… Then click on down arrow and choose OTHER.
Insert titles and URLs. Click save, and your done. Your link will show on your profile under “Addition Information.”
Join Groups
Once your profile is ready, you should look for groups within your industry and start participating to the discussions. When you have contributed to the group for a little while, you can request to connect with some members of the group.
Groups are the only way to connect with people you don’t know personally on LinkedIn. So its well worth it to try to join groups and connect with people.
I never had any doubt that LinkedIn was a great tool to network with professionals and potential clients, but I have to admit that I was dragging my feet to make sure that I had at least a professional looking profile and try to connect and be seen by other users.
What made me decide to finally go ahead and update my profile and be more engaged on LinkedIn is that I’ve seen people getting really great results with this professional social media platform.
Just as any other professional out there, it’s important for you and your online business to be on LinkedIn. So, the question is, are you taking advantage of LinkedIn to the fullest? People getting great results, do.
Let me know what you think by leaving your comments below…
The one should update LinkedIn profile now, keep the information on it to a minimum if you are only going to use it on the odd occassion, but ensure it’s up to date! Once your profile is up to date and complete, the power of LinkedIn will become more clear to you as you are looking at your friends, colleagues and clients’ profiles and learning things about them you never knew!
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Hi Martin,
Linkedin is a powerful marketing tool. People working for companies who want to find their next best job have understood that. But it’s the same thing for those of us who are online either selling a product, a service or even just wanting to attract traffic to a site.
Have a great week!
“Do you know what you’re doing with linkedIn?” The truth is I don’t know, yet. I am still learning so this post is very, very welcomed.
The summary of your skills reflects who you are and what you do. True. The endorsing skills part has puzzled me for a long while. I haven’t understood the skills role. That’s because I saw many people endorsing skill after skill like there was no tomorrow. I thought this was the way to go so I endorsed myself a lot of skills for my connections. Endorsing like crazy!
Then I got a message from you where you explained you deleted some of the skills endorsed by your connections as they were not appropriate, they didn’t match your real skills. This time I understood completely. You have to be real and not say you have a skill that you … don’t have. This will definitely hurt you on the long run.
Have a nice day
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Hi Silviu,
Well, I really appreciate your honest feedback, and the fact that this post came handy for you. Well, truth be told I am also still learning about Linkedin and not by any mean am I an expert in any social media. But guess what? I spent three days in a row working on my linkedin like crazy to get a bit more educated in it then I was, and get it going before I embarked in a project where I needed a better Linkedin profile.
So, this is why I did some cleaning and started sending messages asking people who were nice enough to have endorsed me in the past, to please, redo it where I am actually “knowledgeable’ not where I’m not. I am not interested to be endorsed in “networking” or “social media”, or even “Wordpress” That’s not who I am. So, that’s why I asked to be endorsed for things such as writing, copywriting, mentoring, life coaching, or blogging… for example.
To start with I didn’t even know how those skills popped up in the first place, but it seems that I can’t get rid of them, so if anyone reading this, knows how I’d love to know that.
Yes, it’s very important to have a professional looking and sounding summary. I worked on mine according to some “expert” tips I got. I hope this will work much better for me. I’ve already seen much more activity on my profile in just a couple of days.
Thanks for coming, Silviu
Hi Sylviane,
I used to be so active on LinkedIn and called it my “Secret Weapon” for business a while back. Reading this post made me realize that so much has changed. I do need to get back into it because that is where most great marketers hang out.
Also, I think I’m procrastinating because my profile is one big mess. Plus I do need to update so much information.
When I was active in it I found that the groups worked so well. OK You have given me a good push. And I thank you for that!
-Donna
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Hi Donna,
Well, that’s great if I gave you a little push to get back into it. I see many people having a lot of good results on Linkedin so that’s why I wanted to get ready by editing my profile and my links that were so old that they linked to all sites I don’t have anymore for over a year.
Linkedin is really where the pros hangout and where we need to be.
Have a great week, Donna.
From time to time I’ve gone in and updated my profile Sylviane per the suggestions of people who are teaching us how to improve them but I just don’t like LinkedIn.
I’ve reached out to people in the past and I’m part of about three groups but it’s not as social a platform as Facebook, Twitter or Google+. I prefer to be more social and I’ve never had any luck with LinkedIn. I can hardly ever get them to answer my emails.
I think the old saying of pick the platforms that suit you the best and then spend a lot of time there. Well I have and this one isn’t one of them.
I hope that those who do want to have better connections on LinkedIn will take your advice and update their profiles. To me it’s more for the businesses then the bloggers but that’s just been my own experience.
Great tutorial though.
~Adrienne
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Hi Adrienne,
I understand your point. I’ve been trying things at times that some people were crazy about and it didn’t work for me. Even with my blogs, I’ve been trying very hard to attract more traffic and comments for the longest time, now, but I’m reaching a plateau that never ends. Doing what others do, doesn’t seem to work all that great for me.
As you were saying, it looks like it works for some, but I’ve done the exact same things and it doesn’t seem to work as well for me, so I am going to start a new method to attract who I need, and I’ve spent money for it and now it’s going to take me some time to learn a few things and apply them. I know one thing, I’ll put all my might into it.
I so agree, not everything works the same for every one.
Nice to have you back, Adrienne.
Thanks Sylviane, I have to add some video to mine. I haven’t checked my profile since the new updates. I’m in many groups but one local group with marketers is very informative and I hope to meet some of them soon. There are so many things one can do on LinkedIn. I do share a few items there in the stream as well and use Scoop.it to do it too. Thanks for sharing the new updates with us!
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Hi Lisa,
Until now that I really investigated things I didn’t even know about the fact you could put videos. I’ve joined more groups recently too.
I think we should definitely take more advantage of Linkedin. Every body else does 🙂
Thanks for coming by.
Hi Sylviane,
LinkedIn is the best platform for professionals. I’ve seen how my friends connect with professionals such as business owners and next time, they are working for ’em in their company. That’s wonderful indeed! BTW groups are the best places to hunt opportunities 🙂 Eventhough I’m not that much active on LinkedIn, I’ve got 2 clients landed on my blog via LinkedIn too.
Sometimes when I come across LinkedIn profiles, I find they have been overlooking their profiles. Ugh… That’s not a good practice at all. May be they don’t know what they are missing.
I’m really glad I’ve already covered your tips mentioned here 🙂 Mine is keep updating as I learn, do projects and when I find something missing. When I start out, I had no clue what to write and how to organize it all.
Well, thanks for the reminder and I gotta scan mine again for what I’ve been missing Sylviane 🙂
You have a successful week!
Cheers…
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Hi Mayura,
Well, the proof is in the pudding as we say here in the US. What I mean is that you’ve got clients right from Linkedin.
Once thing we need to keep in mind is that Linkedin inspire more confidence than probably any other social media, that’s why there’re great advantages on being there.
I know I’ve neglected Linkedin Myself, but no more.
Thanks for coming, and have a great rest of the week!
Hi Sylviane,
Thanks so much for all these practical tips, which I intend to bookmark for future reference. I know I need to do more on LinkedIn, but haven’t had time to work out how to use it properly yet. I’m not actively promoting myself as a business at this stage, so I don\’t feel it’s a priority for me at the moment, but it’s something I’ll probably have to get my head round in future.
I haven’t yet shared any content on LinkedIn, by the way – do you?
Thanks again for a really useful share,
Sue
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Hi Sue,
You see, that’s why I wrote this post. I find out that the little office worker had his Linkedin all set up and working for them to find better jobs, but the internet marketer, blogger and the like doesn’t. But if you ask me I think that’s a mistake.
Yes, I certainly share my content on Linked it and I belong to content, writing and blogger/blogging groups.
I have to admit I was also slaking quite a bit until now, but I’ve made some progress recently.
Thanks for coming Sue, and I hope you will use Linked when it’s time for you.
Hi Mansi,
Well, I hope this post will motivate you to use it.
Thanks for your input.
Thanks for the tips. Will make sure to join LinkedIn soon!
Great. You should.
Thanks for coming
Thanks for this great tips, LinkedIn has come to become one of the great social networking places on the internet, it is a good place for business publicity.
Hello there,
Yes, Linked in this one social media to be in. All professionals are.
What a great tutorial! I must admit to being one of those people who only talks about using LinkedIn – but doesn’t actually use it! I spend very little time there and one of the things on my to-do list has been to update my bio and clean up my whole profile. I think it’s been on the list for about a year now… I guess I don’t really think of LinkedIn as a place where I could (or would want to) find business. We have always had better luck finding business in real life (not online) so I never bothered. One day I will take it off the back burner! At the very least I know I need to update it so I don’t look like a “non-expert” 🙂 I love your screen shots and walkthrough!
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Hi Carol,
Well, I had to laugh when you said you talk about Linkedin, but don’t use it. I think it’s great if you find your clients in real life, but what would hurt to find a few more through Linkedin? Unless you have more than enough as it is.
I would have sworn that you guys did use Linkedin. I don’t feel so bad after all as I’m really using it for only about a week, but grew my connections to almost 20 more people in this week alone.
Thank you for accepting my invite by the way, and for coming here.
Hi Sylviane,
Have you been pepping over my shoulder? 😆
I was on LinkedIn only yesterday touching up some of my profile, which does need a total re-write… Especially after reading this post 😉
I’ve got all my links in place, but not any videos. The videos I create tend to be tutorials to help my blog readers, do you think they’d be fitting in well on LinkedIn?
I don’t spend as much time on it as I should, maybe I’ll readdress that in the near future. I tend to go in and reply to emails but I find I get a lot of spam from LinkedIn members as well, we need to choose our contacts wisely.
I also like to endorse people that I know as well, but after you’re email I’m not just using the endorsement box at the top but actually visiting the persons page and doing it from there… Great tip, thanks Sylviane.
Thanks also for the heads up and nudge to get over there and check everything’s as good as it can be 😉
Have a great weekend Sylviane,
Barry
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Hi Barry,
To answer your questions about videos, if you have a video that gives you credit for your skills you could put in your summary area. But you could totally put a tutorial video under your skills.
I receive a few spam emails as well, but not too many. I think that on Linkedin it’s better to be more careful about who we invite, that’s why they don’t even have an option to invite people we do not know at all. They don’t encourage that.
Thanks for coming and hope to see you more over at Linkedin. Have a great weekend.
I joined LinkdIn and have made some great connections with people all over the globe.
It can be a little intimidating at times. You thoughts on introducing yourself as an expert are great.
Now I think it is time to update my profile! Thank you so much for your tips!
Karen
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Hi Karen and welcome to my blog.
I will check you out on Linkedin and see what you’re up to.
Nice meeting you here 🙂
Great post!
LinkedIn is actually the most important of all social media when it comes to business because it was created for professionals! People on LI aren’t looking for funny cats pictures but rather for professional opportunities!
Take advantage of that 🙂
Thanks for sharing these insights. I try starting an online business. But I think it’s difficult for me because I don’t have any knowledge about Business as well as the others. But I try looking for some tips for increase my kowledge to start may business.. Thank for your share 🙂
Hi Wendy,
Hope you can find some help on this blog. Thanks for coming.