Linkedin Training

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Fully Optimized Profile
https://www.linkedin.com/in/bryandaly

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16 Tips To Optimize Your
LinkedIn Profile & Enhance
Your Brand
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/20140708162049-7239647-16-tips-to-optimize-your-linkedin-profile-and-enhance-your-personal-brand

1. Completeness. Make sure that every section of your profile has been completed and
that there are no blank spaces or obvious gaps. Your LinkedIn profile is your online
resume, so treat it with the same level of seriousness you would your normal
resume. Here’s what you need to have completed to have an ‘All-Star’ status:
You need to add your industry and location
A current position
Two past positions
Your education information
A minimum of three skills
At least 50 connections
A professional profile picture that represents your industry. This is critical for your
LinkedIn success! Adding a profile photo could result in 14 times more profile views.
So, if you are a Creative Director, you might want to have more of an edgier photo as
opposed to a CEO, who would want to have a suit on in a traditional pose. Having
the same picture on multiple social media channels like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn
and Google+ will help build your personal brand. Whatever you do, don’t use a
selfie, your company logo, you and your furry friend or something like the below
photo. These types of photo’s could damage your personal brand which defeats the
whole purpose of being on LinkedIn. An ideal pixel size is between 200 x 200 to 500
x 500. If either width or height exceeds 4000 pixels, your photo will not upload.

2. Create Your Vanity URL. When you create your
LinkedIn profile, the default URL that you get doesn't
exactly roll off the tongue. Instead of a URL with a
million confusing numbers at the end, you need to
create one like this:
http://www.linkedin.com/in/BryanDaly
This URL is far more friendly from an SEO point of view
and is a vital opportunity to have your profile rank
higher in Google and to make it easier for people to
find you.
Go https://www.linkedin.com/profile/public-profile-
settings# and click “customize your public profile URL”
on the right hand side.

3. Get Written Recommendations. It is still
important to have written recommendations
from colleagues, management, people you
manage, vendors or customers, however,
LinkedIn no longer requires three
recommendations to have a complete status.
It is still considered a best practice.
Recommendations that are written for specific
roles show up underneath each position in which
they are written. They are very different from
Endorsements and serve a different purpose.
Each person that writes you a recommendation
will have a thumbnail of their profile photo right
next to their recommendation.

4. Add Skills And Get Endorsements. Endorsements are one-
click acknowledgments from your network showing that
you are being recognized for a certain skill. If you would like
to learn more about Endorsements, check out this
earlier blog post.
http://brandlovellc.com/2012/09/27/new-linkedin-feature-
endorsements-an-easier-way-to-recommend-your-
connections/
The reason endorsements are important to your profile is for
search results. The more endorsements you have for a
specific skill, the more likely that you’ll come up in the
search results when someone is searching for that skill.
For example: I have 99+ people who have endorsed me for
Social Media Marketing. When a hiring manager or
recruiter is searching for people with the skill "social media
marketing," it is more likely that I will come up somewhere
on the first few pages of the search results.

5. Create Custom Links For Online Properties. Don’t list
the generic “website” but brand it with your company
name or blog name to make those links more
appealing to people who view your profile. For
example, if you want to include a link to your blog,
rather than choosing LinkedIn’s standard “Blog” anchor
text, customize it to include keywords that indicate
what your blog is about like, “Social Media Blog or
BrandLove, LLC Blog.”
This will help optimize your profile and drive Google
PageRank to your other web properties. Each profile
can display up to three website links like this, and they
can be customized by editing your profile, clicking edit
on your website links, and selecting “other” in the
drop-down menu to customize the anchor text.

7. Search Engine Optimize Your Profile. You can
also optimize your profile to get found by
people searching LinkedIn for key terms with
which you want to be associated. Add these
keywords to various sections of your profile
such as your summary, specialties, job title,
career history and personal interests.

8. Incorporate Branding Into Your Profile
Background Image. This is an expanded
custom profile background image (1400 x 425
pixels). You can choose to either upload your
own background image, keep the default blue
gradient background, or select from a gallery
of background images should you need design
inspiration.

9. Use Keywords in Your Headline. The headline
is the first thing people see when they go to
your LinkedIn profile. Unless you change it,
your headline will appear as your current or
last position held. Since this headline will
appear in various places on LinkedIn, you want
it to be more descriptive. The LinkedIn
algorithm seems to put a lot of emphasis on
the words used in the headline when ranking
people, so make sure it includes your key
attributes, benefits your company offers.

10. Add Projects. I highly recommend adding a projects
section to your profile, especially if you are a
Consultant or Freelancer. By adding this section, it will
allow you to name your project and input a URL. This
then turns the title of the project into a hyperlink,
leading the viewer to the project’s website and thus
creating an inbound link. You can specifically relate
your project to a position that you hold or have held.
This can be a great way to show off your expertise in a
current or previous position by showing viewers
evidence that you know your stuff. The best part is that
you can add “Team Members.” If you are connected to
your collaborators on LinkedIn, you can add them here
and their name will appear as a hyperlink to their
LinkedIn profile.

11. Join Groups. Find groups related to your
industry or niche then make sure that you join
them and, if at all possible, be an active
participant in two or three of them. This will get
your profile noticed by other industry contacts.
According to LinkedIn, your profile is five times
more likely to be viewed if you join and are active
in groups. Just remember, if you’re going to
participate in group discussions, groups are about
COMMUNITY not YOU. You should participate by
all means, but to support the community not sell
yourself or your services.

Make the most of your group by using the same practices you'd use to interact with
group members at a social event or a friend's house.
Here are some best practices to help you become a valued group member:
Make sure your posts are relevant to the interests and intent of the group.
Invite discussion. If you find yourself disagreeing in a discussion, remember to keep
conversations respectful.
Avoid postings that may be seen as self-promotion.
The best way to promote yourself in groups is by providing value to conversation topics
with relevant information.
If you're sharing a link or article, provide context on its relevance to the group.
This is your group, so you can flag spam when you see it to keep it clean. Flagging spam
helps your management in that group, and it helps us identify trends so we can
prevent similar activity in all groups.
Important: When fellow group members or group management feel that certain
contributions don't meet their group's intent, they can take actions like flagging or
removing comments, or even removing and blocking you from a group. We (Linkedin)
monitor the frequency of those actions, and if too many occur, you could become
subject to moderation in all your groups for a period of time. Learn about
the moderation feature, or learn more if your posts are being moderated in all your
groups.

12. Build Your Network. Once your profile is in good
shape, work on building your network. Here are some
things to keep in mind: when asking to connect with
someone, use “we’ve done business together” rather
than “friend.” Be sure to personalize any requests to
connect with how you know the person or where you
met or who you have in common. If you do decide to
try to connect with someone that may not know you
well, be absolutely sure that you defend your network
invite in the personal note section, such as saying you
just purchased their book or saw them speak at a
major conference. If you invite people to your network
and they mark your invitation as someone they do not
know, you will be banned (temporarily) from inviting
new people to your network unless you know their
email address.

• 13. Use Linkedin As A CRM Tool. You should
know that LinkedIn has a feature that allows
you to segment your connections.
Once you've made the connection, make sure
you “tag” them into certain folders turning
LinkedIn into a very powerful CRM tool that
allows you to target messages to individuals or
groups of people.

14. Add Media To Your Profile. Images and/or documents add a visual appeal
and will make your profile stand out among the rest.To add media
samples to the Summary, Education, and Experience sections on your
profile:
Move your cursor over Profile at the top of your homepage and select Edit
Profile. I highly recommend using Internet Explorer. I am not able to do
this using the Chrome browser.
Scroll down to the section you want to add a sample and move your cursor
over the add media icon (looks like a square with a plus sign).
Select Upload File if you’d like to display the media sample on your profile OR
select Add Link if you want to link to content that exists on another web
site. If you chose to add a link, type or paste the link to your content into
the Add a link field. If you chose to upload a file, select the file from your
computer. A picture of your file will display with pre-filled Title and
Description fields.
You can customize these fields. Here are the acceptable file
formats: Documents:.pdf, .doc, .docx, .rtf and .odt Images: .png, .gif, .jpg
and .jpeg and Presentations: .pdf, .ppt, .pps, .pptx, .ppsx, .pot, .potx
and .odp. File size should not exceed 100 MB.
Click Save. An update will appear on the homepages of your network, letting
others know you added the media file or link unless you have this feature
turned off.

15. Jazz Up Your Profile With Symbols and Bullets. Using
bullets, symbols and visual cues in your LinkedIn profile
will definitely help to make yours stand out from the
crowd in a positive way especially if you use them
conservatively.Like anything else, just make sure you
don’t get too crazy or too cute with your choices in
symbols. And, most importantly, make sure you don’t
overuse them. You don’t want your profile to appear
unprofessional. This will cheapen your personal brand
whichyou've worked so hard to fine tune. Click here for
"How To”.
http://brandlovellc.com/2014/02/19/how-to-jazz-up-
your-linkedin-profile-with-bullets-and-symbols/
Feel free to copy and paste the symbols and bullets for
your profile.

16. Showcase Awards, Volunteer Experience,
Organizations and Causes You Care
About. What you do out of the office says as
much about you as anything else and also
contributes to a higher search ranking. In fact,
according to LinkedIn, 42% of hiring managers
surveyed said they view volunteer experience
equal to formal work experience.

6. Rearrange Your Profile. LinkedIn enables you
to reorder the sections of their profile in any
way you prefer.
When in edit mode on your profile, hover your
mouse over the title of each section.
Your mouse will turn into a four-arrowed icon,
at which point you can click then drag and
drop to another position on your profile. If
you have won awards, for example, you may
want to move these below your summary
section.

Click “home”
Then “Recent Activity”

“Create a New Post”

Leverage your mutual connections

Return the favor