Three 60 second LinkedIn tips to boost your profile today

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LinkedIn is seen as the boring older sibling of the social media family.

It’s not very cool, or exciting but it is such a great tool for your business or career, and it’s so worth investing some time in making your profile stand out, sell you and your skills and connect you to the right people.

After all, what they say is true:

It’s not what you know, it’s who you know.

So, I’m giving you three 60-second LinkedIn tips you can take action on today that will skyrocket your profile and help you stand out from the crowd.

1. Smile

The first thing people see when they search on LinkedIn for a person or when they click on your profile?

Your picture.

And so many people’s profile pictures are either:

  • too dark
  • too fuzzy
  • not professional enough
  • them standing too far away from the camera you can’t make out their face
  • too obvious its been taken on a night out

My most common bug bear with profile pics is when people aren’t smiling.

We’re psychologically predisposed to be attracted to, and trust more, people who smile! So, be honest with yourself… is your profile picture really an honest representation of you, and the you that you want to portray? Is it clear enough and are you smiling and showing yourself to be the warm and happy person someone wants to work with?

Action: Take a new, smiley, profile picture and upload it now!

2. Use keywords

Keywords are basically words or phrases that people type in to search. For example, if they were looking for someone like me on LinkedIn, they’ll likely search ‘social media trainer’ or ‘copywriter’ or ‘blog writer’.

These are keywords I know people are using to find relevant connections.

I then use these throughout my profile. In my:

  • Headline
  • Bio
  • Summary area
  • Past experience
  • Skills and Expertise

The more I use them (without sounding like a robot or a repetitive weirdo) the more I come up in relevant searches, the more connection requests I get and the more opportunities for my business.

Action: Write down all the keywords and phrases people might use to search for someone like you and add them into your profile copy.

3. Tag and remind your connections

It’s all very well connecting with every person under the sun on LinkedIn, but you’ll likely get to a point where you just can’t remember how you met someone or the last time you spoke to them.

Fortunately, LinkedIn has a feature which allows you to tag a connection (sort people by labels/topics you choose). I have tags such as:

  • Met at ‘xxx’ networking event
  • Delegate at ‘xxxx’ workshop
  • Client + [service]
  • Friend / Family
  • Colleague at [company name]

There’s also a reminder feature to set a date and note to automatically email you to reach out to a specific connection. I use this with people who’ve said they want to work with me but aren’t ready, or when I have something coming up I know they’ll love and I want to make sure I remind them to check it out.

Action: Create tags and assign them to your contacts and set reminders for important people you want to keep in touch with.

Jen Smith coaches entrepreneurs in social media.

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