LinkedIn and Personal Branding: What Experts Have To Say

We’ve all had the saying “don’t judge a book by its cover” repeated to us constantly while we were growing up. But as much as we hate to admit it, we all make judgments about people we don’t know. They aren’t necessarily negative, but we still assume things based on a person’s appearance and demeanor.

As a professional striving to grow a business, the last thing you want is for people to make a mistaken assumption about who you are. LinkedIn is the one platform where your posts are meant for people to gather information about you professionally, such as what makes you the kind of person they would want to do business with. Perfecting your personal brand on LinkedIn can be simple, as long as you devote a few minutes to it from time to time.

Below you will find highlights from expert articles about how to enhance your profile for business, how to make your profile best reflect your image and how to make your profile SEO-friendly.

On Making Your LinkedIn Profile a Priority

Thanks to LinkedIn, people can search through countless profiles to find the perfect candidate or potential vendor they are looking for. If you do not make certain that your profile is representative of the best Brand You, you may be preventing yourself from getting a job or new clients.

In his post, How to Optimize Your LinkedIn Profile for Job Search, Jorgen Sundberg emphasizes that your LinkedIn profile “is your shop window to recruiters and potential employers, and the first place which potential recruiters will look when they are considering contacting you.”

He follows with many tips on ways to make sure your profile is perfected and represents you best. Your profile must communicate your job seeking or business objectives, your personal elevator speech and it must be free of grammatical errors.

Show your prospects that you are the right choice by working a little each day on your profile.

On Your LinkedIn Image Positively Portraying Brand You

A profile picture is the first thing most people see on a LinkedIn profile. If your personal picture is not representative of your personality, you are putting yourself at a disadvantage.

In How to Create a Brilliant Personal Brand on LinkedIn, Aimee Bateman shares her story of how her profile picture kept her from getting a job. Aimee’s photo, which was in black and white, showed her in a professional suit looking sternly into the camera.

Someone recommended Aimee to a hiring manager, but he viewed Aimee as “hard nosed, arrogant and a little scary.” Her picture alone was enough for the hiring manager to judge her as the wrong person for the job. Aimee follows her story with tips on how to create a personal brand on LinkedIn that is truly representative of you.

On Targeting Your LinkedIn Profile

A common way people find businesses they want to work with is by searching for relevant keywords. Because LinkedIn headlines sit higher up on web pages, any keywords you place in your headlines will be more easily found by search engines. Making your LinkedIn profile SEO-friendly can quickly lead people to your profile and will give you a huge advantage.

In her article, How to Make Your LinkedIn Profile Professional Headline SEO-Friendly, Meg Guiseppi gives examples of what your profile should look like when it is searchable to recruiters. Meg also gives other important tips for making your LinkedIn profile eye-catching with quality content.

How are you currently using LinkedIn to develop your personal brand? What changes will you make to your strategy now that you’ve heard from these experts? Let me know in the comments.