How to optimize your LinkedIn profile.

LinkedIn is very important when we are either looking out for a job or looking out to securing business as a startup. It is understood by all of us that Startup solutions are evaluated by the Founders than the solutions themselves. This is because there will be no major customer breakthroughs that a startup would have done.

The question that comes to our mind is – Are we leveraging our LinkedIn profile the right way? All of us have a LinkedIn profile and we do end up posting something or the other or connecting with other people on a regular basis. However, our LinkedIn profile may not be giving us the desired results. This can be 1) No of people accepting our connect Invites 2) No of people sending us the connect requests. Why is this happening?

In this article, we will discuss a few of the best practices that we can follow while setting up our LinkedIn profile. They are:

• Look at building a plan than just having a LinkedIn profile

Many people think of a LinkedIn profile as a tick mark. Many say that I have a decent profile and they need not worry about anything. However, LinkedIn happens to be your single-page website that talks about you. Many of your customers would immediately go to your LinkedIn page after they finish their conversation with you. They may also go to your profile when they hear about you. Your LinkedIn profile also will show up first in search engine results if someone types your name.

So, spending some time to make it represent you the best is important.

• Get a Custom URL

A custom URL will be very good for you to have. You have to choose a specific name and get your url to look like www.linkedin.com/in/customurl.. This will help you brand your LinkedIn profile. You can also choose the same custom URL for other social media handles as well so that you can give your CustomURL as the handle and can give it to your customers.

• Get a good photo

Since you are using LinkedIn as your web page, it is important that you have a professionally shot photograph. All of us take it light and might use a selfie. It is ok if the selfie comes out well. However, your customers form opinions when they see a poorly shot photo.

• Draft out a good headline

Your headline gives your viewers a good perspective of who you are and what you do. So, let your headline be the value proposition you offer to your customers. It is good to target a specific set of customers and inform them on what you can do the best for them. This will help the prospective customers get a quick handle on what you do and they might get incentivized to check your profile.

• Fill the summary

LinkedIn allows you to use 1000 words to fill your summary. You should make sure that you think through the summary like it is your resume or your web page. You should ensure that you use all the 1000 words to fill your profile.

• Optime your summary using the relevant keywords

You should make sure that you use all your possible keywords to help your profile is optimized. This way, the LinkedIn summary will be highly contextual with your customers when they will consume your content.

• Ideal if you can use some numbers

It is always good if you can use some numbers to highlight the achievements of you or your company. Numbers can quickly be consumed and be understood by your customers. You can make a quick impression with your buyers when you would have numbers. This will give confidence to your buyers

• Get personal with your users

Communicating on LinkedIn is you talking to people and not talking at people. You must ensure that you use words like I, Me, You instead of words like We, Yours, etc. This will get quite personal with your users and they will consume your content.

• Highlight why your past experiences make you a great person

You have to be contextual and should highlight how your past experiences lead you to begin this startup You will also convey the thought on how you are most capable of solving your customers unique problems with your scalable solution or knowledge.

• Get contextual recommendations

Many of us pick up random recommendations from people who are not connected with our business. It is ok to have two or three recommendations also but those should be highly contextual to the business you are in. Those are the only ones who your customers will be eager to watch. Having un-necessary recommendations will only kill your profile.

• Make your endorsements work for you

Keep modifying or adding new endorsements that reflect your profile. Keep requesting people to endorse you on your endorsements that make sense to your business.

Conclusion

All of us have to leverage our LinkedIn profile to get in front of many prospective customers. Making minor changes to make your profile to make it more contextual will help your LinkedIn profile be attractive to your prospective customers and make the profile very contextual. You can now increase your connections and can also increase the incoming requests to connect. Your LinkedIn can be a good lead generation machine by itself.