Your LinkedIn Profile - As You See It
Part 1: First Impression

By Alex

In Wikipedia, “LinkedIn is a business-oriented social networking site that was founded in December 2002 and launched in May 2003 and is mainly used for professional networking.”
According to the latest stats, LinkedIn just hit 85M users worldwide and this number keeps growing every second.
Based on LinkedIn DirectAd targeting stats the Top 5 groups of users by regions, industry and job function are listed below. Of course these numbers are approximate and changing literally every second and by the time you read this, they already might be significantly different. But at least you can get an overall view of the trends.

You can find more stats in LinkedIn Marketing Solutions section.

Do you want to miss this amazing opportunity to communicate with such an audience? Don't believe so. Nowadays you just can't afford it!

If you made your decision to create your professional profile in LinkedIn, go to www.linkedin.com web site. The instructions are pretty straightforward but some of the tips below will help you to elevate your presence in this network.
 
Those tips are just basic guidelines for a quick set up of your profile. In the next articles there will be more specific and detailed information about additional tools which you can use to convert your profile into a strong and powerful self-marketing tool.

Now, let’s have a look at your profile from the very top of the page and if needed make some changes step by step.

First of all, if you want to use the full power of LinkedIn (and it doesn’t matter why you joined LinkedIn - you name the reason), it’s important to have your profile completed.

When someone pulls up your profile on the screen for the first time, the first impression should create interest and motivation to scroll down the page. Let’s see what you’ve got.

1. Overall completeness: is it 100%?
Action: Follow LinkedIn advice to reach this number and use Profile Completion Tips.
Tip: If you have your experience section more than 50% completed, I wouldn’t recommend importing your resume as you might mess the existing information up. This option is good for new and uncompleted profiles.

2. Headline: did you use it to grab attention to your profile and make it more searchable?
Action: Make sure you have the headline filled out if you want to be found.
Tip: Be creative. Enrich your headline with keywords relevant to your professional background. Try not to use abbreviations even though you think everybody knows what it means.

3. Your profile picture. Do you have it?
Action: If not – upload your profile picture. Your network would like to see you as a real person.
Tip: If there are privacy concerns, you can adjust your profile picture visibility settings in Edit My Profile mode.

4. Your current and previous employers: Did you list all the companies you worked for and currently working for? By doing this you will increase your chances to be found by the companies’ names and the positions you held there. The same applies to the Education section.
Action: Fill the Education and Experience sections of your profile completely making sure you used the key words that enriched the description of your current position.
Tip: If you just started completing your LinkedIn profile you can use the Import Your Resume function to optimize the process, then modify the description and add the rest relevant information manually. My opinion here is that your LinkedIn profile is NOT your resume as many may think. Make it different from resume - don’t miss the opportunity to promote yourself in a different way.

5. Recommendations: Do you have at least three recommendations? Let’s talk about that later, but for now you will not reach 100% of your profile completion without at least 3 recommendations, period.
Action: Use Request Recommendations function.
Tip: You can give your recommendations to your connections and in return LinkedIn will suggest those connections to endorse you. Be sincere in giving your recommendations without counting on receiving a recommendation in return.

6. Your Connections: Did you think about the purposes of your LinkedIn profile? A network without connections doesn’t make any sense, but how you build your network is totally your call. There are three main approaches in building your LinkedIn network: by quality of connections, by their quantity and blended.
Action: Use Add Connections function to start building your network. Follow the instructions.
Tip: Regardless of your tactics in building your LinkedIn network, do not send invitations to people whom you don’t have any formal or informal connections with. At the same time, if you receive an invitation to connect from a person you don’t know formally or informally, do not use IDK (I Don’t Know) unless you are sure that this is SPAM. Simply ignore it or use the “Decide Later” function. First try to figure out if there is any reason for that person to connect with you by checking his/her profile (if visible). If a user gets 5 IDKs, LinkedIn blocks the option for that user to send invitations to connect. Don’t forget, you can also adjust your profile’s invitations settings.

7. Your web sites: Did you list all 3 of them?
Action: If not – identify three web resources which might reflect your professional background (links to your other social networks’ profiles, your online resume or portfolio, your employers’ web sites etc.) but remember – they should be relevant to your profile.
Tip: instead of having the standard definition of the web sites suggested by LinkedIn, use “Other”. This will allow you to put the unique description of your web sites.

8. Internet link to your public LinkedIn profile: Is it short and contains your unique name? (i.e. http://ca.linkedin.com/in/yourname)
Action: Change the link using your unique name.
Tip: Promote your profile by using your LinkedIn customized Internet link by including it in your email signature or putting it on your business card.

After you've made some changes, do you want to scroll down the page? Hopefully, yes.

Let’s do it next time, when we will talk about how to write your profile summary and how to use your status updates to enrich your LinkedIn profile and to make it more searchable. So, stay tuned.

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Do you have any other tips and tricks on how to make your LinkedIn profile more powerful or have any questions about LinkedIn? You are more than welcome to share them in comments below!

Talk to you soon and please, enjoy your life. Every day.