20 - Tip Tuesday - LinkedIn Profiles 101 with Karen Yankovich
Loved, loved, loved, the info in this Tip Tuesday, as Karen Yankovich, of Karen Yankovich.com stopped by to break down why you HAVE to be on LinkedIn if you own a business. Lots of great information and tips on how to optimize your LinkedIn profile and get the most out of this amazing social media medium.
Why should be a business owner be on LinkedIn? Google’s algorithims rate LinkedIn very high. Basically if anyone is ever going to do business with you, they’re going to want to know a little more about you. You can either give them what you want them to know about you (and professionalize your profile) so they don’t have to keep on searching, or make them search more to find you (and have no idea the information they're going to find). People are going to do their homework on you, and LinkedIn is going to come up when they do that homework.
Make them feel warm and comfortable when they go to look on doing business with you.
LinkedIn is also about making authentic connections with the people you want to meet and do business with. It’s the front door to your digital business. There’s no end to the marketing abilities you have with LinkedIn.
Should we also use LinkedIn for the possibility of business partnerships and how do you work on that connection? First, just connect. The more you connect, the bigger your network is. You can also post on LinkedIn the way you post on Facebook. You can also share other people’s content. It just helps to keep you top of mind for people. It will help to make you been seen as
an expert in your field.
Use it exactly like you would be sitting in an in person networking event, just all online.
One great tip is if you’re working on HARO, find the name of a person who is looking for a source. Then connect with them on LinkedIn, and then let them know you pitched them, and that you’re happy to help them out in the future if they need other ideas.
What do you do if you’re in dual jobs (a corporate world and a small business world)? If it’s not going to affect your job, Karen encourages you to really put all of your stuff out there because it makes you more interesting. Make this all about you! You just don’t know what’s going to resonate with people, and she’s all about putting it all on your profile. You can even fill in the interests, and it gives people something to talk about with you. Try to build each one so they can relate to each other, so it all comes together to a crescendo.
Always think of this as your personal profile, so make it your profile picture (not logo, etc.). This is the place to let the world know what a rock star you are, and what you do!
What are the key profile elements to fill in?
- Headline – this is under your name. Think about when people are searching for something, you want to come up as their search results. What are the keywords they’re using in the search, and how do you put that in the headline. Use every single character you can use. Spend time on that headline because you can use that in all your other social media sites.
- Summary – Don’t skip over the summary. You tell in first person who you are. Use the keywords and every space that LinkedIn gives you. (Google is reading all of this). Go to the end of the summary and then list your specialties.
- Titles in Experience – Notice it doesn’t say jobs, it says experience. It can be volunteer work, anything you have experience with. It just doesn’t have to be job titles.
How important are endorsements? They are important because they are there, and they continue to restate the keywords from the headline. They’re valuable when someone is scanning your profile, you want to make sure there is no doubt in their mind that you know what you’re talking about (in the fields that you claim to know). The more endorsements you get, LinkedIn’s algorithms see that and put you to the top.
Should you be pushing for recommendations? Karen says they’re valuable because they’re public so you can use them wherever you want. If people say nice things to Karen, she asks them to write an actual recommendation. You can even use a plug-in where those recommendations are listed on your website. It makes a testimonial more legit. It’s social proof on steroids!
What content should you be sharing? You can post anything that’s really relevant information. If you blog, share your blog posts, or articles written from other people that could be of interest to your followers. You can tag people in that post. It’s not as common for people to share on LinkedIn, so when you’re doing this, it gets noticed. Share everything like podcasts, and videos, and add media to your LinkedIn profile. You can play those right within your LinkedIn profile.
Is the paid profile worth it? Karen says no. She actually upgraded and is still using most of the free features.
More About Karen: Karen combines her extensive business experience and love for online marketing. She's found her sweet spot and works with helping her clients find theirs. She users her geeky left brain to manage the systems and the technology, and her creative right brain to combine that technology with conversational marketing.
She helps her clients use innovative lead generation strategies, so they can up level their sales game, attract more clients and increase their revenues. Because she understand that the bottom line IS the bottom line. You don’t need fluff and you don’t need your team wasting their time on activities that don’t bring in money.
Karen offers courses, workshops and 1:1 consulting, and you can find more about all that she offers at KarenYankovich.com