LinkedIn ALL-STAR Profile Techniques To Attain Your Desired Connectivity
with bonus suggestions to embed for more engagements
As professionals in relevant fields, we all know about LinkedIn and its importance in the business world. Connection building, career development, and job hunting are a couple of significant parts for the LinkedIn page.
Yet, most of the professionals fail to keep their LinkedIn profile up-to-date, which makes them lose to achieve the desired outcome.
As a Business Consultant, I have to engage with multiple client touch-points. As LinkedIn is one of the major platforms I use to reach out to business professionals, I have to conduct necessary adjustments to keep it updated.
There is always room to improve. So I’m overhauling my whole Profile in this weekend and thought of sharing the relevant techniques that can help others to achieve the ALL-STAR profile.
Let’s get started.
Post & share regularly.
Why?
To be on the top-of-the searches and top of the minds of industry experts.
How frequently you should post?
Post contents regularly (if possible, daily).
What you should post?
• Status update with an example, case study, story, experience, etc. • Relevant contents, using an outside link option (i.e., Medium article link). • Relevant to the industry or, appropriate to the business.
Do not Sale on LinkedIn. But you can share how you can help the connections (in short).
Why?
It is a trap. If you start to make sales pitches in your communications or post, people start to notice these things. And 99.99% of the time, people tend to avoid ‘screaming sales pitches.’
What you shouldn’t share?
A sales pitch, sales post, your daily journal, etc.
What you should post?
You can share your solution information in a short note, which should mention what the problems are and how it is going to solve. If anyone requires to solve the issue, they will connect accordingly.
Share tips or expert opinion in your status, supported by content or article. Teach something essential and share it with your connections.
Why?
Because tips or expert’s opinions can solve someone’s problem.
How to share?
Through storytelling, experience sharing, or sharing articles with summarized notes. You can share a relevant journey on how you have faced an issue and what are the ways you have resolved it.
Acknowledge others and their achievements.
Why?
Because it shows how genuine you are, acknowledging the hard work of people. That means you are a team player. It also encourages people to acknowledge others; in turn, it might be you.
How to acknowledge in LinkedIn?
• You can write a private message on LinkedIn or any other media to that specific person with a ‘Thank you’ note. • You can write a good note on your status, sharing your excellent experience with the relevant personnel in a story. • LinkedIn has a ‘Kudos’ option, where you can nominate or acknowledge your peer or connection for a specific cause.
Showcase your best works in the feature section.
Why?
It will show the diversified range of areas you have expertise on and also will increase the chance of being notified.
What to put in feature section?
Outside portfolio link, photos of your teamwork/achievement/projects, media, article, etc.
Please remove the buzzwords.
Why?
As guilty as I am. My profile still contains some of the buzzwords, which I require to replace with different wordings. When you fill your information, experience, and other details with these buzzwords, your profile will not stand-out in the search. ATS can find and not take your profile for a relevant career opportunity.
What are the buzzwords?
How to remove or what to place?
There are so many alternatives that you can put instead of these words.
For example, instead of ‘Strategic,’ we can use ‘significant, consequential, high-priority’ based on the sentence.
Even if you write these buzzwords, you can highlight it with relevant projects, works, media, and links to suffice your claim.
If possible, add personalized video in your profile section (media).
Why?
It will make you stand-out in your industry. Also, it will show the confidence that you are upfront in what you can offer to the word.
What to put and how to put it?
You can mention your career journey (in short), what are your expertise and how you will be helping others with your expertise. You can record your personalized video from your cell-phone, you can edit it (there are numerous apps out there) and then you can upload it in your profile section.
Keywords and search terms to add in the skills section.
Why?
To be on the top of the search list in ATS for the relevant job.
How?
• The easiest way is to look for the roles you are aspiring to move and identify the keywords or main responsibilities the position has to offer. • The other way is to look into the industry experts’ profiles and to look into their ‘Skills’ section.
One thing to be clear, add only those relevant skills which you have expertise.
Reach out to industry specialists or clients by sending ‘Add request’ and include a ‘Personalized Note.’
Why?
To increase your connectivity and to learn from them.
How?
You can utilize the search button of LinkedIn and can identify who is the relevant person that you should connect with (from an organization, from a group, etc.). Then, you can click ‘More’ and then click the ‘Connect’ button. There will be an option to ‘add a note,’ so write a personalized message of why you are reaching out to connect and then ‘send.’
Accept ‘Add request’ with a personalized reply.
Why?
Courtesy brings courtesy. If you are humble, it should reflect in your actions. As they are reaching out to you for a connection, you should accept with an appropriate response to a human being.
How?
After accepting the request, you can send a written message to the person.
The new thing you can do (and should explore to do) is to send a video or audio message with your ‘Thank you’ remarks.
Other generic habits to incorporate.
· Make a habit of giving 5 ‘Likes’ or ‘Thumbs up’ for your connections’ relevant posts every day and provide comment on at least 2 of those. Make sure your comments are adding value or asking questions or promoting a new idea.
· Make sure to use your ‘Status’ option (not only to share content but also to add a professional story/experience of yours).
· Be engaged in active causes that you care about.
· Provide recommendations and referrals, and in return, please ask for yours.
· After searching for a profile, you can also identify who can be other relevant personnel within the same industry or organization by utilizing the ‘People also viewed’ section.
· For more connectivity, you can always put your career interests on, which is to set your profile as ‘Open to opportunities’ — where recruiters can connect with you based on your settings.
· Use the ‘Salary insight’ part to incorporate your current role information (LinkedIn says, it is confidential), as it will provide you a snippet of the salary and compensation within the same industry for different roles.
Don’t forget to recheck basic sections.
And, the above ones will be successful only if the basic sections are already in great shape. To provide a quick checklist of the basic sections, please view the following chart.
Overall, consider the LinkedIn platform for a long-term perspective and identify what you want to achieve with this tool. Based on your objective, you have to plan and execute. It may change your daily habits, engagement frequency, and other social media engagement. How you want to use this tool is entirely up to you.
Sources used (not for marketing or affiliated links purposes)
* Author’s LinkedIn Profile. Link: https://www.linkedin.com/in/suntonubhadra * LinkedIn. Link: https://www.linkedin.com/home ** Harvard Business Review Ascend. Link: https://hbrascend.org/topics/how-to-be-an-empathetic-manager-infographic/?utm_source=LinkedIn_website&medium=website_share *** Medium Article. Link: https://readmedium.com/so-you-are-working-from-home-what-to-follow-for-maintaining-a-sane-remote-work-scenario-698bb64bff36 **** LinkedIn article. Link: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/15-buzzwords-remove-from-your-linkedin-profile-right-now-lathrop/