As a professional, you can't get around it: LinkedIn. Meanwhile, 4.1 million Dutch people use LinkedIn, half a million of them even daily! Time to take a closer look at your LinkedIn profile. Even if you already do a lot of LinkedIn, we have some tips for your LinkedIn profile (not for LinkedIn company page or marketing!). Because it can always be better.
1. Keep your profile up-to-date
This may seem like a little bit of a go- but it's something you'll quickly look past. Time flies by and before you know it, another month has passed, or a quarter, or a year – and you haven't changed anything about your LinkedIn profile. Change your job, you'll remember that. But do you also update your profile if you have won an award or if you have published something somewhere? And when you've completed a project that reflects what you're capable of? Or if you have obtained a diploma, even if it is only a free online course? Is your bio still right? These are elements of your profile that quickly catch up.
Our advice: create a recurring task in your calendar or whatever planning program you use (Trello, Wunderlist, et cetera). Every two months check if everything is still correct is absolutely fine. Of course, it's best to do it right away, but that bimonthly reminder is great to check it all out?
2. Get a professional photo
Although you don't have to judge a book on its cover, your profile picture is the way to make a good first impression. Your little avatar will appear in search results. It's part of your image. Take a moment to (have) a quality and professional photo taken. Enter into a barter deal with a photographer, just hire a photographer or get started yourself (preferably not with your phone's selfie camera). Provide a quiet background and don't spend an excessive amount of time on your appearance. How your profile picture can look best varies by industry. So take a look at what professionals in your field do.
A nice website is Snappr, where your photo is tested for a number of criteria. Completely free and quick result plus improvement points: https://www.snappr.co/photo-analyzer/
3. Investigate the keywords of searches
SEO is everywhere. Not only on your website, but also on your LinkedIn profile. Do keyword research before you start writing your profile texts. What keywords do the people you want to work with or for? Think carefully about what you want to be found about and find out if there is a demand for this. Process these keywords in your intro text ("bio") and the rest of your profile like your work experience.
4. Take the time for a good "bio"
The intro text is one of the first things people see. After your headline and your profile picture, this is what should convince people to view your profile (or just work with you right away!). A few tips for your bio:
- Think from the people who view your profile. What's in it for them? I'm glad you're a copywriter, but what's in it for them? So don't tell me that you write attractive texts but focus on contributing to a strong image, longer website visits and higher conversions.
- Keep it short and powerful. If it's going to be long, use incups.
- Use white rules. Reads much finer than one piece of text.
- If it suits your field, use emojis to brighten up your text and make it more readable.
- Write from the first person, so not "Jantje received an award for best copywriter in 2018" but "In 2018 I won an award for best copywriter" (or even better, use the emojis as a kind of enumeration).
5. Get a CTA
What do you want people to do when they look at or have viewed your profile? Would you just like a good image and profile yourself as a professional? Are you looking for a new job or are you open to new projects? Make it clear what the purpose of your profile is by include it in your bio and possibly in your headline or your work experience.
6. Get recommendations
You can still be so convinced of your own abilities, people take it from others much earlier. You seem much more believable when other people say good things about you and your projects or skills. Therefore, make recommendations or recommendations. While it's not much trouble for someone to write such a piece, it's something people quickly forget. The best way is therefore to make a phone call with a satisfied customer, employee or other business relationship and type a piece for them. Then invite him or her to write a recommendation for your profile and paste the typed recommendation into the invitation message. All he or she has to do is copy and paste it. Be nice to write one for them right away.
7. Use media
Text is great, but also overwhelming. An interview in a magazine can be interesting, but it is suddenly a lot duller when you see the pure text – without the beautiful images and other design. LinkedIn is, of course, much more limited in formatting than a magazine. However, you can make your profile very personal by adding media. For example, a movie with your bio (there it is again), a link or a screenshot of a beautiful project that you have completed or a picture of your team.
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