I’ll bet you’re intrigued when someone looks at your LinkedIn profile and you don’t know each other. Somehow, someway, they found you and took the extra step to actually click on your profile to learn more about you. But what did they learn? Did they read enough to reach out to you? Did they send you an invitation to connect?
If not, maybe your profile is missing just one piece of information will make you more interesting or show you have something in common with the reader. That might be just enough. Consider these simple LinkedIn profile tweaks to compel them to reach out.
Photos
I’m still amazed at how many people do not have a professional-looking headshot photo of themselves on their profiles. Please noticed that I didn’t say a headshot taken by a professional. While that’s a good idea, it isn’t a prerequisite. You just need a photo of your smiling face, wearing your go-to-work clothes, without a distracting background. Please don’t substitute your company logo for your face. People don’t do business with logos, they do business with people. Not convinced? Profiles with photos get 14X more views than those without.
Add a background photo to the top of your profile. Choose a photo of something you like to do or something about your career or company. If you have a hobby, share a photo of that. A client of mine is a great amateur photographer and loves sailing. His background photo is a harbor of sailboats at sunrise.
Add Personality to your Summary
No one likes to read resumes (except maybe a recruiter). But, everyone likes to read a story. The summary section is a perfect place to tell your story. Speak in first person language, not only about what you do but why you do it. Explain a problem you solve for others and how you do it. Tell your readers something about yourself that makes you interesting at work or outside of work. If you’ve transitioned from one career to another, this is a great place to tell that story. Because keywords are critical for LinkedIn search, find a creative way to weave them into your story.
With the 2018 profile update, the first 300 characters of your Summary are visible right under your photo. Use these 300 characters wisely – think of them as your hook to entice the reader to click “see more”.
Personalize Your Headline
Unless you create your own headline, LinkedIn will auto-fill it with your job title and company name. Boring! You are so much more than your job title. You have 120 characters to describe yourself. Keywords are important here. You can include your job title, titles or words that describe what you do and even a tagline if you have one. Your headline is very visible, right under your photo.
Add Media
You can add external links to your own web content, upload photos, presentations, .pdfs to your Summary and Experience sections. This really allows you to personalize your information for your readers.
Make it Easy for People to Contact You
Keep in mind that your contact information is only visible to your 1st connections. A reader may want to reach out before connecting. Include a brief sentence in your summary and/or current experience with information about someone can contact you.
Add Volunteer Experience
Most of us have spent some time during our adult lives volunteering for one thing or another and usually, it’s for a cause or organization that was important to us. If you’ve ever volunteered, list it in the Volunteer Section. (To add this section, click the blue “add sections” button and under Background, you’ll see Volunteer experience listed.)
Listing your volunteer experience not only shows how cool you are by giving your time to others, it is listed right under your work experience and education for and, the keywords you use when you describe your duties count with LinkedIn’s search algorithm.
List Organizations
Add the Organizations section to your profile. You can list Chambers, professional, social and hobby organizations. This could be THE section that shows you have something in common with your reader. How many times have you connected with someone because they belong to another chapter of an organization you belong to?
All of these suggested tweaks are easy to make and may lead to a new connection or business opportunity. They’re certainly worth trying.
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