Connecticut Internet Marketing & SEO

52 Pages·2015·2.08 MB·English

by  Michael Allton

The Ultimate Guide
to the
Perfect LinkedIn Profile

Optimize Your Profile For Success

By Mike Allton
The Ultimate Guide to the Perfect LinkedIn Profile 1
Copyright © 2015 by The Social Media Hat

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof
may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever
without the express written permission of the publisher
except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

“LinkedIn” is a trademark of LinkedIn Corporation. This publication includes trademarks
and other intellectual property of LinkedIn Corporation, in respect of which LinkedIn
Corporation reserves all rights. LinkedIn Corporation is not associated or affiliated with
this publication nor has LinkedIn Corporation endorsed the publication or its content.

Printed in the United States of America

First Printing, 2015

The Social Media Hat
St. Louis, MO 63301

www.TheSocialMediaHat.com

The Ultimate Guide to the Perfect LinkedIn Profile 2
For Emmaline
The Ultimate Guide to the Perfect LinkedIn Profile 3
Special Introduction
In April of 2014, it occurred to me that I been making quite a few
modifications and customizations to my LinkedIn profile. I’d been using
LinkedIn since August 14, 2007, and throughout that time I’d been using
LinkedIn less and less for job seeking, and more and more for connecting
with peers, colleagues and potential prospects for my business services.
Which meant that the way I was using LinkedIn was somewhat contrary to
how the standard LinkedIn profile is designed.
You see, normally, one of the most important aspects of your LinkedIn profile
is your Experience and your Education. That’s because potential employees
are very interested in where you’ve worked and where you went to school.
But I realized that most of my connections weren’t interested in where I went
to school. They were interested in what I could do for them, what problems I
could solve, and I needed my profile to do a better job communicating that.
So I began to take note of the various changes and updates and
customizations I’d been making, like rearranging my LinkedIn profile sections
to better highlight my skills and expertize, and deemphasize things like
where I went to school. And as I went through all of these changes, the list
grew rather extensive. I think I had over a dozen recommendations when I
got the point of being ready to start writing.
The initial article ended up at around 4500 words with the original 19
recommendations as seen in the infographic I created to complement the
post. Since then I’ve added a few more sections, begun to compile tips from
LinkedIn experts I trust, and have spent time improving the overall style,
formatting and readability of the article. The result is a resource that’s been
met with incredible feedback and interest. I hope you get good use out of this
expanded digital format.
Mike Allton, Feb. 2015

The Ultimate Guide to the Perfect LinkedIn Profile 4
The Ultimate Guide to the Perfect LinkedIn Profile
Because LinkedIn began as a platform for connecting employers with
employees, essentially an online resume service, our LinkedIn profiles are
far more complicated and advanced than the other social networks. This is
no 140 character Bio like on Twitter. You've got sections for a Summary and
Experience and Education and more.
And I have to be honest here, setting up and optimizing a LinkedIn
profile takes time. This is not going to be a "Clean Up Your LinkedIn Profile
In 5 Minutes" kind of post. So while it will only take a few minutes for you and
I to run through these suggestions, be prepared to spend a considerably
greater amount of time actually implementing some of them. Fortunately,
once done, you can relax, have a glass of wine, and just pop back into your
profile every few weeks or months to make a couple updates.

Before we jump into these recommendations, let me make one more point
perfectly clear. These are not necessarily recommendations for the perfect
LinkedIn profile if you're looking for a job. I am writing this from my own
perspective, as someone who is using their LinkedIn profile to connect with
influencers, partners or prospects. I already have a business and I
am counting on LinkedIn to help me grow that business and reach more of
their nearly 200 million active monthly users.

All of the recommendations below are just that, recommendations. Take 'em
or leave 'em however you'd like. Each can be implemented by going to
LinkedIn, logging in, moving your mouse over to Profile in the top menu and
then clicking on the Edit Profile link. This will put your profile in edit mode,
and you'll be able to change anything you need to. You may also want to
take advantage of LinkedIn's suggestions and recommendations for
completing your profile. LinkedIn will ask you a series of probing questions
designed to get your profile even more complete, starting with a couple of
recommendations displayed below your profile image.
The Ultimate Guide to the Perfect LinkedIn Profile 5
To edit, simply mouse over elements of your profile and click on the pencil
icon that appears to the right of each section to edit it. Edits will be saved as
soon as you click out of each profile field. Your profile essentially is always
in edit mode.

Note that the LinkedIn for iOS app supports making edits to your profile,
while the LinkedIn for iPad app does not. If you want to make changes to
your LinkedIn profile while using your iPad, you'll need to log into LinkedIn
using either Safari or Chrome on your iPad. You can then edit the various
fields, though i would still recommend doing so from desktop. It's faster,
easier, and you can't upload images from your iPad if needed. Throughout
the rest of this guide, I will assume you're editing your profile via desktop.

The Ultimate Guide to the Perfect LinkedIn Profile 6
We will cover:
1. Why Use LinkedIn At All?
2. Research Keywords for LinkedIn
3. Use a Current, Professional Profile Image
4. Consider Premium, and Then Add a Cover Photo
5. What's Your Name, and What Do You Do?
6. Offer Complete Contact Information
7. Grab a Custom URL
8. Make Sure Your Profile Is Visible
9. Consider a Profile Badge
10. Support Additional Languages
11. Update Your Connections
12. Update Your Background
13. Add Media / Links
14. Review Skills & Endorsements
15. Move Sections Around
16. Add / Update Projects
17. Add / Update Publications
18. Ask for Recommendations and Give Recommendations
19. Regularly Share Relevant and Interesting Status Updates
20. Regularly Publish Posts
21. Review Group Memberships
22. Check Your Profile on Mobile and Embeds
23. Daily LinkedIn Activity
24. BONUS: Expert Tips on LinkedIn
Let's get started.

The Ultimate Guide to the Perfect LinkedIn Profile 7
1. Why Use LinkedIn At All?

You may be wondering, if you're not looking for a new job (or just keeping
your options open), why bother trying to craft the best possible LinkedIn
profile? What good will an optimized LinkedIn profile do for you or your
business?
The answer, of course, is plenty. Here's why.
First, bear in mind that a lot of people use LinkedIn. LinkedIn has over 300
million users and most of them login monthly. That's a lot of potential
contacts. There are 107 million users in the U.S. alone, yet over 200
countries are represented.

What's perhaps more interesting is that the average LinkedIn user spends
approximately 17 minutes per day on the platform. That means users go
there with the intention and expectation that they'll be spending some time,
unlike Google+, for instance, which sees an average time spent of just 7
minutes per day.

LinkedIn's membership includes a high percentage of CEOs and Millionaires,
along with millions of people who have neither Twitter nor Facebook profiles,
making it the only platform you can potentially reach them.
Second, LinkedIn has worked hard through the years to establish and
maintain a platform reputation as "the network for professionals." People
tend not to share personal, off-topic information or imagery to the platform,
and are therefore more receptive to professional, business-related topics and
discussions. This means that initiating professional connections and
conversations on LinkedIn is not only normal, it's encouraged.
LinkedIn's messaging system, InMail, is designed to help you create
connections with interested individuals, and recently went through a revision
that resulted in new policies going into effect January 1. In essence, now, if
you have one of the LinkedIn Premium plans that give you an allotment of
InMail messages, you can use them to email any other member of LinkedIn,
regardless of your connection to them. And if they respond to your message,
you get credit back for that InMail. Therefore, you have incentive to craft
personalized and relevant messages, rather than bulk spam. Since,
according to LinkedIn, 48% of B2B decision makers won't respond to sales
professionals who don’t personalize their messages.
The Ultimate Guide to the Perfect LinkedIn Profile 8
So, given the overall membership profile of LinkedIn, and the incredible
opportunities to be seen and to prospect, I think you'll agree it's time to start
improving that LinkedIn Profile of yours.

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