How to optimize your LinkedIn profile?

Let’s admit it – our daily life is nothing without social media. This is where we connect with friends and family, share special occasions or daily events, recreate memories. But modern society is also using the power of social media at work and in marketing. It’s not just a rumor that future employers check your social profile before or after a job interview. They really do. That’s why all professionals should be careful about the content that they post on social platforms.

One of the benefits of having many different platforms for connecting people is each one has a different networking purpose. And the social media most popular for connecting professionals and companies is, of course, LinkedIn.

“To create economic opportunity for every member of the global workforce.”  (Jeff Weiner, LinkedIn CEO in an interview  for New York Times’ Corner Office). And this is exactly what they have done and continue to do.

We should not underestimate the impact of social media profiles on our professional life. That’s why we need to take care of how we look in the eyes of our profile visitors. We can even say that this is how the first impression is made nowadays and we have only one chance to make a good first impression.

With this blog post we want to help you optimize your LinkedIn profile in order to appeal to your future employers and employees. (Bosses also do need to make a good first impression, don’t they?)

To begin with, we would like to remind you that there are five levels of profile strength – “Beginner”, “Intermediate”,  “Advanced”, “Expert” and “All Star”. They all depend on the information you have provided and the extent to which you have supplied the information about yourself.

In order to achieve the highest level “All Star” you need to :

1) Add a profile photo
2) List 2 or more jobs with descriptions
3) Have 5 or more skills on your profile
4) Write a resumé about yourself
5) Fill in your field and location
6) Add where you went to school
7) Have 50 or more connections

Having a higher level profile increases your ranking on LinkedIn definitely works for you, since it ensures that your profile will appear in LinkedIn search results and you will be ranked higher than  people with a lower profile strength level.

This kind of optimization of your profile only requires  filling in some  information. However, there are a few other things you can do for your profile to look professional and work in your favour.  Below we have listed our suggestions for how you can make your profile appealing with just a few changes.

• Customize your public profile URL 
  • Why? – Besides giving a more professional look, it makes it easy for your profile to be shared and, after all, sharing is what social media is about. 
  • How to do it? – Go to your profile and look for a link under your profile picture (which you should have for sure!), click on the link and your public profile should appear. Then on the top right side there is the link with the symbol for “edit”. 
• Add a background photo 
  • Why? – Gives your profile a little bit more personality and it’s a great way to present yourself in a visual way. Just don’t forget that this is a professional social network and relevant pictures are the best choice. 
  • How to do it? – When you go to Profile > Edit Profile, the text “Add a background photo” appears and the button below allows you to upload a file (jpg, png or GIF). 1400×425 px is the optimal resolution.
• Include key terms in the different sections of your profile
  • Why? – This is how you can increase Search Engine Optimization of your LinkedIn profile. Include key terms of your professional field in your experience descriptions, summary and/or in the headline of your profile.
  • How to do it? – When entering the information to increase your Profile Strength level, include the most important and relevant keywords and specific terminology. 
• Show examples of your work
  • Why? – Because it helps you show your best work, expose your best skills and prove that you are good at what you do. 
  • How to do it? –  You go again to the “Edit profile” page. Once you have entered the information about your work experience and have it saved, you can add media from the buttons below. LinkedIn gives you the opportunity to add documents, photos, links, videos and presentations. It’s up to you to decide which format showcases your best work examples.
• Structure your profile sections
  • Why? – It’s nice to know that you have the possibility to decide the appearance of your own profile. This is quite cool, because everyone likes to be in control of their own public profile, especially when it comes to professional exposure. 
  • How to do it? – When you are on the “Edit profile” mode and you hover the double-sided arrow in each section, your mouse will turn into a four-sided cursor and you will be able to drag and drop the different sections wherever you want them to be. We suggest that you try several variations to find out which one fits your needs best.

These are pretty much our suggestions on how you can optimize your LinkedIn profile. You can try them and share your experience or tell me your solutions for a great LinkedIn profile performance.

This article was written by Crunch, you can read more interesting articles on the website www.wearecrunch.dk