LinkedIn is a maze, it can seem impossible to get started as it’s such a huge platform. Some parts of LinkedIn can be self explanatory – for example, have a clear profile picture so people know it’s you – but other parts aren’t quite so obvious. If you’ve ever wanted some tips to help give your personal profile a push in the right LinkedIn direction, then this post is for you.
Many, many LinkedIn members are lurkers who comment and post nothing. Only 1% post their own status updates each week! So, even if you only post once a week, you’re already ahead of the curve.
We’ve focused on three bits of advice that will help you get more out of your personal profile.
Check your tagline
Your tagline is the little sentence or two that appears after your name whenever you post, and under your profile picture on your personal page.
Don’t make this your job title and business name. People can find that when they click on your profile. You need to grab people’s attention; make them want to click on your name and view your profile. Only around the first 60 characters are visible every time you post or comment, so make sure you’re communicating the most important message in a way that grabs the reader’s attention.
Try to avoid “helping.” I.e. “helping businesses meet targets” or “helping you achieve weight loss goals.” It’s very beige. Beige is boring; beige blends into the background. Don’t be beige. You need to stand out, so be different.
Instead of “helping you achieve weight loss goals” try “stopping dieting from sucking since 2019”. Instead of “helping businesses meet targets,” think about “talk to me to smash your financial goals.” Or perhaps “making your business not shit” if that fits the tone of voice you tend to use. We swear, but lots of companies don’t like that, and that’s fine!
Your tagline appears every single time you post or comment. Pay attention to it! After the first 60 characters you can add your company name and more beige terms if you want; these will help you show in search results. You just don’t want them in those first 60 characters.
Your comment strategy matters more than your content strategy
You have to give engagement to get it – something many people on LinkedIn don’t understand. You should aim to engage with (that means commenting, liking, etc.) about 10 things a day on LinkedIn – and don’t just target your customers and potential sales. Engage with people you’d like to work with, or people you’d like to partner with. Hell, engage with the competition and lift each other up – the world needs a little more “nice” in it!
Comment wherever you can and make it relevant – remembering that every time you comment, that tagline of yours pops up. And, for the love of God, don’t just spam “thanks for posting/sharing.” They’ll know you didn’t read it, and people will start to dislike seeing your spam (and they also won’t engage with you). Add value to the conversation!
This is one of our tips to improve your LinkedIn personal profile because more engagement means more people will see you across the platform. This means your profile has a higher likelihood of being viewed, leading to a better chance someone will message you about your services!
Post regularly if you can
Aim to post your own updates 2 – 3 times per week, but if that’s not possible then just remember:
- Consistency is key
- Your comment strategy matters more
If you’re struggling for what to write about, you could always have a look at one of our recent blog posts that had some ideas!
If you’re writing a text post, rather than a video (video always performs really well, but we know it’s not always easy to do), then aim for a minimum of eight lines of text. When you’re writing the post, aim to hook people’s attention within the first three lines of those eight. This is because LinkedIn will only show the first three lines, and will then have a “read more” button that people have to click to view the rest of the post. Forcing people to click “read more” will help engagement on your posts.
Finally, include relevant hashtags – three minimum, five maximum. And put them at the bottom of your post, in the body of the post itself. Don’t put them in a separate comment. They do nothing there and they don’t work if you do that.
To finish…
Remember this is a marathon not a sprint. These LinkedIn personal profile tips are just to get you started – it’s not going to start showing you returns overnight. You’ll likely have to wait 3 to 6 months before you start seeing a return on your time investment. But consistency is key, and you will get there.
We don’t pipe ourselves as LinkedIn experts for personal profiles, but we do know quite a few tricks for it. If you’d like to learn more, you can drop us a message and ask!