You’ve got a photo of yourself in a great suit on your LinkedIn personal profile. Your banner image shows off your business USPs or tagline. You’ve got some basic info filled out.
But is this showcasing the real you?
Often, we think that because it’s a photo of ourselves, obviously, it’s us. But, we often forget to look at our profiles from the perspective of a stranger.
Why do you have a LinkedIn account?
One of the first questions we need to ask ourselves is – “Why do I have a LinkedIn personal profile?”
There are a variety of reasons why you have your personal account. In a lot of cases, you probably tick off more than one of the following:
- Looking for new employees or for employment
- Connecting with people in your industry (or adjacent industries)
- Reading the latest business insights being shared
- Because you were told you should have an account
Regardless of the reason, connecting with others is sort of the whole point. But will people want to connect with you?
Robots, everywhere
When we say robots, we don’t mean actual robots. We mean those annoying spammers whose repetitive posts you see, or whose generic messages end up in our inboxes. You know the ones.
Now…imagine you try to connect with someone, and they think you’re one of those robots!
Oh no, but how could that be?!
Making people want to connect
In the office, you’re able to show off your personality and people learn to trust you because of the interactions they have with you. Some of us even like to think we can just tell from a first glance what kind of person we’re dealing with.
Most of us love to connect with like-minded individuals. Often, the foundational traits we look for are honesty and trustworthiness. But online, we don’t have the same opportunities as we do in person.
You can create those opportunities by making sure your personal profile is a genuine representation of you.
If you don’t usually wear a suit, don’t wear one in your profile picture. Instead of a company slogan in your banner image, put an image that means something to you.
Filling out your LinkedIn personal profile
In person, we can sit face-to-face and ask questions/ get answers. But online, people want to know something about you before they hit that connect button.
This is why filling out key sections of your profile is so important.
You should go through each section of your LinkedIn profile, and determine if you have something you can put there. If you do – you should! Education, languages, even your summary. These are all key areas that will help you build trust and start bringing in connection requests.
If you see a LinkedIn personal profile that really catches your attention, think about which elements that person has included that you might also include in your own. Is their summary easy to read and interesting? Maybe their job experience section is filled in with bullet points.
Whatever elements that catch your eye in someone else profile will likely also catch the eye of others too.
LinkedIn workshops
Workshops are a great way to find out what your profile is missing. When you work with people experienced in using LinkedIn for marketing purposes you gain different insights than if you just read articles online or follow guidelines you googled.
It can be more than just changing your profile picture – even if that’s usually a great place to start.
Social media is ever-changing, and LinkedIn is becoming more important for both individuals and businesses when it comes to creating professional connections. It’s important to keep up and stay relevant – while also being able to build trust.