Risk & Business Magazine Cooke Insurance Risk & Business Magazine Fall 2017 | Page 7

YOUR LINKEDIN PROFILE
L
inkedIn is Facebook for
professionals. It’s a great way
to not only attract people
to—and expand—your
network, it is also a way to
expand your brand and engage with
your clients. Unfortunately, being so
much like Facebook has a downside:
many users treat LinkedIn as though
it is Facebook, which leads to missed
opportunities.
Here, you will find ten of the most
common mistakes professionals are
making in their profiles. Rectifying
these will dramatically increase
your potential for new networking
opportunities and expanding your
business.
1. LACKING A PROFESSIONAL PHOTO
A bad photo will paint even the best
person in the wrong light. And often
the first thing that someone is going
to stumble upon will be your photo. If
it’s old, outdated, or just doesn’t look
much like you, then you are going to
leave the door open for people who you
already know to miss you due to poor
recognition. Even worse, you could
leave a bad impression on those who
don’t already know you. A professional
photo is just that: professional.
2. YOUR PROFESSIONAL SUMMARY
ISN’T APPEALING
Due to the way the consensus in
business has shifted, the trendy thing
to do now is to talk about “missions”
and “passions.” This usually manifests
itself in profiles in the professional
summary section. Here’s the problem:
people don’t care. Having a passion and
a mission statement is great, but people
want to know what you are going to
do for them. How can you help the
person reading your summary? Why do
they need to know you? A passion is a
personal driving force. A solution to a
problem is what you should offer with
your summary. An appealing solution.
3. LACKING VISUAL ENGAGEMENT
LinkedIn has a robust set of features
for customization. Two of these are
the potential inclusion of a banner
and a background for your profile page.
According to Kissmetrics, a leading
website about analytics and marketing,
around 90 percent of the information
going to the brain is visual. To ignore
that on your profile is to invite people
to leave who would otherwise engage
with your content.
4. LISTING THE WRONG SKILLS
LinkedIn has a powerful search
function. One of the main drivers of
that functionality is the ability to filter
and search by skills. Unfortunately,
a lot of people don’t include enough
skills or list the wrong skills in their
profile and bury themselves in searches.
Include all relevant keywords and
phrases your prospects or the people
you want to meet would use when they
search for you or your business
5. LACKING CASE STUDIES
Anyone who has ever done sales or
marketing knows the value of case
studies. If you are leaving out your case
studies, or worse, haven’t created any
yet, then you are missing a powerful
opportunity to show potential clients
what you can do for them. Success
stories are what keep people interested.
Create some in a document, brand it,
and upload them to your profile.
6. LACKING INTERNAL LINKS
Your company has a page on LinkedIn.
You have a page on LinkedIn. You
probably have a website. All of these
things should be linked together. Link
your company page to the experience
section of your profile. Have your
website and company page listed
under your contact information as
well. Building internal links makes
you more visible and allows you to be
reached from more locations.
7. YOU ARE USING YOUR TITLE
AND COMPANY NAME AS YOUR
HEADLINE
The headline can be considered the
“waterfront estate” of your profile page.
It’s going to be there anytime you make
a post and anytime someone looks
you up. It’s an opportunity to throw a
value proposition out there. A headline
is often more important than the
content that falls under it. Your profile
headline is no different.
8. YOU LACK RECOMMENDATIONS
One of the best things about
LinkedIn is that the professionals in
your network can help vet you and
recommend you. Clients who have
enjoyed your services would likely be
more than happy to share that with
prospects, and the recommendation
system lets you do that. Build your
credibility by asking your clients
and people in your network for their
recommendation, but make sure you
get approval from them before sending
the request.
9. LACKING “PROOF”
There’s ample room to include your
past work, case studies, white papers,
PDF documents, and other content
which can be connected to both your
summary and your job description.
Leaving this out is a huge mistake. It’s
an opportunity to be concise while still
including all the background detail
should people want to review it.
10. LEAVING OUT CONTACT
INFORMATION
Let’s be honest: LinkedIn is a great tool
but it isn’t the driver behind meetings
or networking. You are. Your email
and phone number needs to be highly
visible and listed multiple times so
people can get in touch with you if
they need to. Add this not only to the
contact information section but also
to the job summary and job experience
sections as well for added visibility.
CONCLUSION
Often, simply having knowledge of
what the problems and mistakes are
is enough to fix them. With that being
said, nothing will ever be perfect. As
the old adage goes, “Perfect is the
enemy of good.” Aim to make a good,
solid, profile offering and avoid making
the common mistakes listed here and
you will be on the right track. +
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