1. Getting from “You” to your goal company, LinkedIn profile
planning, and 8 Tips on maximizing the power that is LinkedIn
Jake Aull | Zen Fires Digital Marketing | GSU Social Media Marketing Instructor
ZenFires.com | jake@zenfires.com
LinkedIn Profile Planning for
Personal Branding

2. WHY ONLINE SOCIAL NETWORKING WORKS

3. POWER NETWORKING…
— {you are here}
U

4. POWER NETWORKING…
{you want to work for, or sell to,
company ACME here}
U
ACME

5. POWER NETWORKING…
{how to get from here…} {to there?}
U
ACME

6. POWER NETWORKING…
LinkedIn tells you how many degrees you are away from Kevin
Bacon (or company ACME, more to the point)
2nd
U ACME

7. POWER NETWORKING…
LinkedIn tells you who’s between you and ACME.
It tells you if these are contacts from groups your in, or contacts
that friends of yours know – if the contacts are currently at ACME
or used to be… if they’re in HR, purchasing, etc.
2nd
U ACME

8. POWER NETWORKING…
LinkedIn tells you how to get from “U” to ACME (the more
LinkedIn Groups you’re in, and the more
connections you have, the
more possibilities).
ACME
HR
#2U ACME
ACME
Purch
asing
ACME
HR
#1
Friend
Group

9. LINKEDIN PROFILE PLANNING

10. LinkedIn Profile Planning
— Over 90% of recruiters rely on LinkedIn (according to the Society
of Human Resource Management).
— LinkedIn is a “rolodex” of your contacts, but it’s much more.
— Like with most social media, freshness and relevance of content
are very important in LinkedIn.
— And you want to make sure you’ve written and/or researched a
list of keywords to represent your brand and career goals
— And integrate those into your profile messaging throughout the
various sections.
— Not only will this help with users reading your LinkedIn profile,
they will allow your profile to come up in search results for those
specific terms and synonyms.

11. LinkedIn Headline
— Your Headline is the first thing you see below the
name and photo - and it’s 120 characters.
— Let it say what it is you do, who you help - and
something about your personality (target this
message - don’t just make it a generic job title).
— Anyone can put “Marketing Associate” on their
headline - make it more niche, and powerful, such
as “Proven B2C Marketing Agency Rising Manager.”
Your headline could even be a CTA.

12. LinkedIn Headline
—

13. LinkedIn About summary section
— Have your summary address “why someone would
want to work with you,” as well as your own personal
USP; your differentiator.
— Your summary could be:
— more of a historical biography of your jobs;
— a writeup representing your work goals, philosophies
and personality;
— or a representation of your accomplishments and
expertise.

14. LinkedIn About summary section

15. LinkedIn Featured section
— This section in LinkedIn allows you to integrate “Posts, Articles,
Links and Media” into your profile.
— Because LinkedIn owns SlideShare.net, you can integrate pdfs
and slide decks into your LinkedIn profile - which is highly
recommended because it can not only add visual graphics to
your profile, but actual meaty content regarding your
specialization.
— Input as many relevant, quality multimedia content samples as
you can (as long as they align with your career goals and
personal brand; white papers, videos, slide decks, etc.).
— LinkedIn Articles is also an option here for integration, as well
as a function of LinkedIn for writing content. Use it! It pops out
and represents you as a thought leader.

16. LinkedIn Experience section
— Bullets can be good for immediate, attention-grabbing
summary points representing your activities in a specific
role/employer.
— For longer, deeper description, paragraph format can
work.
— The question is: “What information would a hirer or
prospect most want to know about my role and expertise
at an employer?”
— Depending on how much info is available on LinkedIn
about the employers, you may want to provide more info
about them as well.

17. LinkedIn Experience section

18. LinkedIn additional sections
— Volunteer Experience, Accomplishments and
Recommendations should all be as full as you can
make them.
— Treat the Volunteer Experience section like you
would the work experience section.
— Accomplishments can include your school courses,
honors & awards, projects, languages you speak,
and more.

19. LinkedIn additional sections

20. LinkedIn additional sections
— The Featured Skills section should be accurate,
relevant (to your brand and your career goals) - full
but not overblown.
— Contact info should be as full (and your profile
should be as public) as you are comfortable making
it. Look at it this way - how easily do you want hirers
to be able to reach you?
— Interests should include your membership to
LinkedIn Groups which, again, are consistent with
your brand and career goals.

21. LinkedIn additional sections

22. LinkedIn additional sections

23. LINKEDIN PROFILE GOOD EXAMPLES

24. Good LinkedIn Profile Example

25. Good LinkedIn Profile Example

26. Good LinkedIn Profile Example

27. 8 TIPS FOR OPTIMIZING YOUR PERSONAL
LINKEDIN ONLINE BRAND

28. 8 Tips for LinkedIn
How can you best use LinkedIn for networking, job-searching, client connections
and overall personal, professional branding? It can make or break you as an
expert in your industry. Here’s the stuff to know:
1.) KEYWORDS & BRANDING YOUR PERSONA
— Search engine marketers use expensive tools to do exhaustive keyword
research and search strategy, but you can get at least a broad feeling for
keywords using tools like keywordspy.com or UberSuggest.
— Write up some starting keyword phrases for your primary business
services, then go to keywordspy or UberSuggest, input those words, and
see what versions and combinations of the keywords the tool
recommends based on highest search volume (and lower CPC, or
advertising cost per click, which can simulate lower competition).
— The results can become your list of strategic keywords.

29. 8 Tips for LinkedIn
2.) WHAT’S A LION?
— LinkedIn Open Networkers – attempt to connect to, and accept, any/all
connections.
— Traditionally, LinkedIn has structured its platform so people would
think more about who they know before connecting.
— For example, LinkedIn won’t display the exact size of one’s network
once it gets above 500 connections to non-first connections. LinkedIn
has traditionally also attempted to mitigate the way connections are
made. For example, only so many connections via a common LinkedIn
Group were allowed within a time period, and only so many
Introductions were allowed within a time period, etc.
— LinkedIn can be used, via DMs (direct messages), like an email list, but
it is purposefully set up to be not completely user friendly.
— So – you may wish to leave LIONs for the realtors, salespeople and
recruiters – and maybe connect to them! But otherwise – think about
who you are in live, in-person networking functions.
— My Advice: Get as many connections as you can, but don’t troll, spam
or stalk people. Customize your messages and invites to the recipients
- if you met them at a specific industry event, say so in your message.

30. 8 Tips for LinkedIn
3.) LINKEDIN & SOCIAL “NETIQUETTE”
— How you behave in a real-world networking event is good
guidance for LinkedIn (and social networking) behavior.
— You don’t (hopefully) meet someone once and start in with
a hard-sell pitch. You may offer others your business card,
but if they don’t counter with their own - take the hint. Don’t
assume you can connect to your new acquaintance in
LinkedIn without good reason or discussion.
— Don’t assume you can connect to people you’ve never met
(unless you’ve gotten to know them already online).
— If you wish to invite someone in LinkedIn after first-time
meeting, ask them first. If it’s not comfortable to bring up in
conversation, probably shouldn’t connect right away.

31. 8 Tips for LinkedIn
4.) WATCH THAT TONE OF VOICE
— Tone of voice in content is very important (both in
your messages and your profile write-up); your
LinkedIn profile is not just a resume.
— But keep in mind the tone of voice for someone in
the banking industry would should be very different
than someone in a creative agency.
— Again - your tone of voice should fit your brand and
career goals.

32. 8 Tips for LinkedIn
5.) GROUPS AND EVENTS
— Associations, LinkedIn Groups and business events
could be worth displaying on your profile if targeted
to your industry.
— You’d talk about industry associations and major
events attended to fellow networkers, so why not on
LinkedIn?
— Plus the advantage for your colleagues to see if both
of you are attending the same events.

33. 8 Tips for LinkedIn
6.) HOW MUCH IS TOO MUCH CONTACT INFO?
— Simple question – do you want others to contact you?
— If you’re a salesperson or a job seeker, you may want
as much contact info displayed as possible.
— So let that be your guide - don’t prohibit that next
great phone call from coming through.
— Remember, this is LinkedIn – for professionals – it’s
not Facebook.

34. 8 Tips for LinkedIn
7.) WHY UPGRADE?
— LinkedIn has paid upgrade options (which I don’t highly
recommend).
— These give you the ability to send more DMs, and to track
them better.
— Also gives the option to send InMails – messages to people
you don’t currently know. But these come through with the tag
“InMail,” often suggesting to the reader a sort of spam – or a
message/connection “through the back door” of LinkedIn.
— Is it really worth the money?
— But upgrading also gives you access to non-connections’ full
profiles, and more statistics. If those can really be helpful to
you, then very well.

35. 8 Tips for LinkedIn
8.) DOING MORE WITH LINKEDIN…
— Many social media gurus recommend supplying answers to user
industry questions in LinkedIn Answers. Doing the same in various
LinkedIn Groups around your specialty is also recommended.
— But you can also take it one step further and create these
communities – LinkedIn Groups – and attract those interested. Supply
the desired content, and eventual connections, and you can have a
captive audience for your content. Not to mention yet another good
claim for the resume.
— And again – you can use your LinkedIn posts and Tweets to promote
your own LinkedIn Group.
— By providing answers and collaboration in other industry online
communities or LinkedIn Groups, members can follow your LinkedIn
profile to your own Group (again without the hard sell) – pulled hook,
line and sinker…

36. SOURCES & MORE READING

37. Sources & More Reading
— https://business.linkedin.com/talent-solutions/blog/linkedin-best-practices/2016/7-linkedin-profile-
summaries-that-we-love-and-how-to-boost-your-own
— https://blog.simplemachinesmarketing.com/examples-of-linkedin-profiles-that-follow-best-practices
— https://money.com/linkedin-profile-tips-resume/
— https://www.linkedin-makeover.com/linkedin-profile-samples/

38. Thank You!
Jake Aull | Zen Fires Digital Marketing | GSU Social Media Marketing Instructor
ZenFires.com | jake@zenfires.com