Maximizing the Effectiveness of your LinkedIn Page

I get a lot of questions about LinkedIn, so I wanted to write a blog post about maximizing the effectiveness of your LinkedIn. It’s very simple, but there are a few key factors that truly up the ante and make some LinkedIn pages stand apart from the other millions of them.

The first thing you should do is organize your page. This means going through LinkedIn page with your resume at hand, ensuring that everything is in order how you want it. As a general rule of thumb I usually organize LinkedIn to parallel clients’ resumes. NOTE** if you don’t like the placement of something, you can drag and drop sections to fit your desired order.

Make sure it is reader friendly. By default, when you type things into LinkedIn, it gets organized into paragraph form, which can appear very dense and as too much text for people to take it. Make sure you organize information into bullets or use section breaks to ensure everything is very skimmable. I’ve said this before, but if people can’t skim your resume, it is pretty useless. The same thing goes for LinkedIn.

Join Groups: Do your research and research groups within your industry. Great options are alumni groups and professional organizations for individuals in the same field of work. You’ll want to join the groups with the most members to cast the widest net. The more members in a group you join, the wider your network becomes, and the more likely you are to meet people who can boost your career.

Make sure your LinkedIn is set to update your network when you edit your profile: When you go to edit your profile, there is a setting on the right hand side which either keeps it private or shows your network when you edit your profile. ALWAYS LET YOUR NETWORK SEE WHEN YOU EDIT/CHANGE SOMETHING! Staying on people’s radar and popping up in their newsfeed is essential to connecting with them and having people think of you when/if a new opportunity arises.

Be active on the website: Whether that means writing blog posts, commenting on other people’s posts, work anniversaries, etc., make sure you are active on LinkedIn. The more active you are, the more you will be in your connections’ news feeds. This again keeps you on their mind and in their scope of business. This ensures that they think of you when looking to fill a position, and shows that you are a go-getting and don’t stand in the shadows.

Last, but absolutely not least, have a professional profile picture: This means that it is professional headshot style. The shot should be only your top half, in professional attire with a neutral background. I’m sorry, but no one in your professional life wants to see you in party attire or sitting in a field of grass. Those photos may be fine for your Instagram or Facebook pages, but LinkedIn is all about work, so make sure your picture reflects that. You also want to make sure that you are the main focus of the photo. If you have a great photo of you in professional attire in front of a busy background, it will take away from you, drawing the eye to the backdrop instead of people noticing who you are and focusing on what skills you have to offer.

It sounds like a lot, but going through these simple steps will ensure that you are not only maximizing your exposure on LinkedIn, but you are maximizing you page’s effectiveness as well. Happy editing!