You know, your LinkedIn profile has literally become your online resume. It has therefore become essential to optimize it as best as possible to boost your application.
Let’s find out how to optimize your LinkedIn profile together and use easy-to-set-up “tweaks”.
Why and how to optimize your LinkedIn profile?
The LinkedIn profile page is the basis of your personal branding. There are some really outstanding profiles on LinkedIn getting a lot of traction. LinkedIn regularly adds features to increase its capabilities as a personal branding platform and provides new ways to showcase your skills and motivations. If you haven’t checked out your profile page recently, you just might find new ways to build your personal brand.
This LinkedIn profile space is therefore essential! Today, we give you the keys to optimize it as well as possible. You can also take the help of a LinkedIn Consultancy to make things easier for you.
Here are the 6 most common mistakes that make the job seekers and candidates executives or employees on LinkedIn, and how to fix them:
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A LinkedIn profile without a personalized title
By default, your title corresponds to your current function. No way! You need to edit this title so that it sums up who you are and what you’re known for. Also, use keywords for specific skills that you have that others may not be familiar with.
This will ensure that when a recruiter searches for someone like you, your profile will appear in their search. You have 120 characters use them to your advantage.
Here’s an example for a marketing manager:
Marketing Director | Marketing & Leadership Strategy | Digital Expert – I support companies in their marketing strategy and develop their income
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Disregard the people you are trying to influence
Just like with your resume, you just need to think about who you are trying to reach, what will interest them the most, and what you want to tell them.
This is called branding. Whether or not you try to do it, you are making yourself known, to an incredibly large audience, through your LinkedIn profile. Be thoughtful and deliberate in your posts. Remove things that your target audience doesn’t like and add information that will appeal to them.
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Create a vanity URL for your profile
That’s it, the word is loose! Vanity URL. Admit it’s classy… but what does it mean? It is simply the URL of your LinkedIn profile but usually personalized with your first and last names.
Example:
instead of
linkedin.com/user/X6h7Hf
you will now be
linkedin.com/in/JohnFObama
It is now more compliant, isn’t it? Above all, this also has the advantage of ranking you well in Google when employers “Googlelise” you – yes, recruiters do that…
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A LinkedIn profile without a photo or better with a Facebook photo
No, your LinkedIn profile picture is not used to show your level of coolness. This is a photo that must look professional but a little less formal than the passport photo all the same.
It’s up to you to find the right balance but make an effort to put a photo rather than posting a profile that will be a little anonymous …
LinkedIn is a tool that invites interaction, don’t forget that. For more advice, Next LVL Photography has a great article on the do’s and don’ts for photos on a linkedin profile.
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Optimize the skills and expertise section
The “Skills and Expertise” section is important: fill this section with terms and phrases that are really useful to you. Just type it into the search box to see what pops up. You can select up to 50 so enjoy!
Of course, depending on the level of the position and your business environment, it may not be essential to accumulate fifty. For this we recommend you to have a better grip on LinkedIn account management to get complete use of the social network.
A key thing is to choose the “standard” skill expressions offered by default by LinkedIn. This will make it easier to find you.
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Few recommendations or worse, none
Each of us has at least a few people in our professional circles who will speak highly of our skills. Go ask a small handful of them to recommend you. And when you ask, don’t just say: “Hey, can you recommend me?“
It is best to approach with details of what you are looking for and what you would like them to tell you.
For example, you could write:
“Hello, I am very interested in showing potential employers my expertise in team management made up of specialized profiles. Would you be willing to write a LinkedIn recommendation that describes your experience with me while working at “COMPANY X” last year?
I think this project really illustrates this ability and it would help me a lot. ”
Finally, you absolutely must take advantage of the millions of groups on LinkedIn. There is, literally, a band for just about every profession or hobby. Find a few groups that are well attended and highly relevant to your professional field and/or geographic area. The alumni groups are also very interesting.
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Why participate in LinkedIn groups in your profession?
LinkedIn groups can deliver average experiences if poorly managed. But there are some really interesting ones that have thousands of people together, and you always have the flexibility to create and moderate your own.
LinkedIn is used by 94% of B2B marketers, compared to 87% for Facebook and 84% for Twitter, according to a marketing study carried out by a leading firm. Two in three marketers rate the effectiveness of LinkedIn very positively in their organization, compared to 55% for Twitter and a surprisingly low rate of 30% for Facebook.
If marketing professionals are there, it is because they know the quality of the profiles informed. There are relatively few fake profiles on LinkedIn, unlike other social networks.
To sum up, there are 3 big reasons to join LinkedIn Groups :
- Find interesting resources or get identified!.
- Establish expertise and obtain advice from recognized professionals.
- Strengthen leadership and think about career management.
Interesting related article: “What is Social Media Marketing?“