How to write better LinkedIn profiles with Karen Tisdell (Part 1)

Every little detail on your LinkedIn profile matters. I know most people find profiles nowhere near as exciting as content. But you’re going to want to hear this.?

Here, I talk to Karen Tisdell, a LinkedIn profile writer and trainer. Even though my podcast guest was not entirely convinced, I’m a big fan of profiles myself. But Karen lives for this stuff though and she’s been at it since 2009, so I figured she’d be a good guest.

I’ve always maintained there’s no such thing as stalking people on LinkedIn. Whenever somebody looks at your profile, they’re trying to validate you or learn more about you. That’s not stalking—it’s research!

Karen is so passionate about profiles that we ended up making a two-part episode. In this first part, we cover profile photos, headlines, the Featured section, and the About section.

This episode is pre-recorded, as I’m currently on holiday touring the beautiful island of New Zealand.

LinkedInformed is a free podcast that you can find and subscribe to on all main podcast platforms and apps. What follows is a brief summary of all the topics covered on this weeks show. If you want to listen to this episode, please click below

While the podcast has a lot more detail, below is a quick overview of what Karen and I discussed:

Hidden cues in profile photos

I don’t know why, but whenever I do training on profiles, I always start with the profile photos. So naturally, we kicked off the conversation with profile photos.

Karen quite literally opened my eyes to a whole new way of looking at profile photos on LinkedIn. I was surprised by all the minute details in profile photos that sometimes send the wrong message.

She mentions Anna MacAfee’s profile, another Australian LinkedIn trainer, as having a memorable, authentic, and likeable profile photo. It’s worth checking out.

The profile photo vs. headline debate…again

Karen and I debate the profile photo vs. headline question from two different but interesting perspectives.

I’ve always argued that the headline tells me how relevant a person is to what I’m looking for—something the profile photo can’t do. Karen insists that the profile photo trumps the headline. She says it’s all about human connection and believes in a correlation between not having a profile photo and a low number of connections or willingness to connect.

Eventually we agreed to disagree.

But that’s the beauty and pain of LinkedIn—it’s not one size fits all. Some members are drawn in by the content, while others focus more on looks. But it also depends on what really matters to your target audience.

Missed opportunities in the Featured section

Comparatively, the Featured section is relatively new to the LinkedIn profile. We discuss why Karen finds this section a missed use.

“…I always feel that in the Featured section, you could have so much more.”

The tricky About section

I call this the tricky bit of LinkedIn profiles because many members struggle to write a good About section. With Creator Mode, the section is so far down the page that I’ve recently been questioning its impact.

Karen goes deep into her framework that suits both business and job seekers. Again, this surprised me because I thought of business seekers and job seekers as being different profile-wise.

She talks about her masterclasses where participants not only complete their profiles in the workshop but also write the very tricky About section. And it’s all thanks to a “shopping list” of different phrases and sentence structures, some of which she shares in the podcast.

We also discuss how to weave stories in the About section, and Karen shares storytelling tips that anyone can master—while claiming I’m a natural storyteller. I’m not so sure about that, but we both agree stories give profiles an edge!

Do you find headlines or photos more important? What do you look at first in a LinkedIn profile? Let us know in the comments.

Part two will be published next week when Karen will start by talking about the Experience section. If you subscribe to the podcast via any mainstream podcast player or subscribe to this newsletter, you will get part two automatically.

Until then...