LinkedIn is more than just a platform for finding jobs. It is also a powerful tool for building and showcasing your personal brand. Your personal brand is how you present yourself, your skills, your values, and your achievements to the world. It makes you stand out from the crowd and attract the right opportunities and connections.
As a busy founder, CEO, entrepreneur, or executive, you know how important it is to have a strong and consistent personal brand. It can help you to grow your business, win new clients, attract more investors, attract employees, or land your dream job or NED/advisory role. But how do you create an impressive LinkedIn personal brand that can boost your career and reputation? Here are some tips and best practices that you can follow:
Define Your Goals and Audience
The first step of creating your LinkedIn personal brand is to define your goals and audience. You need a clear and specific vision of what you want to achieve and who you want to reach with your LinkedIn profile. You need to identify your career goals, your core values, your strengths, your unique selling points, your ideal audience, and how you can help them or add value to them. By doing this, you can create a personal brand statement that summarizes your value proposition and your target audience.
Optimize Your Profile
The second step of creating your LinkedIn personal brand is to optimize your profile. Your profile is the first impression that you make on LinkedIn, and it should be professional, complete, and compelling. You should pay attention to the following elements of your profile:
- Photo: Your photo should be clear, recent, and appropriate for your industry. It should show your face and smile and have a neutral or plain background. Your photo should convey your personality and confidence.
- Headline: Your headline should be catchy, concise, and relevant. It should include your current or desired position, your industry or niche, and your value proposition or keywords. Your headline should capture the attention and interest of your audience.
- Summary: Your summary should be clear, compelling, and authentic. It should tell your story, your goals, your values, and your achievements. It should highlight your skills, your experience, and your results. It should also include a call to action, such as inviting viewers to connect with you, visit your website, or check out your portfolio. Your summary should persuade viewers to learn more about you and your work.
- Experience: Your experience section should showcase your relevant and recent work history, education, and certifications. It should include the name and logo of the organization, your position, the duration, and the location. It should also include bullet points that describe your responsibilities, achievements, and skills. You should use action verbs, numbers, and keywords to demonstrate your impact and value.
- Skills: Your skills section should highlight your relevant and in-demand skills that match your industry and goals. You should include both hard skills and soft skills and prioritize the ones that are most important and relevant. You should also ask for endorsements from your connections to validate your skills and increase your credibility.
- Recommendations: Your recommendations section should feature positive and genuine feedback from your previous or current clients, partners, investors, employees, or colleagues. You should ask for recommendations from people who know you well and can vouch for your work and character. You should also give recommendations to others, as it can help you build relationships and reciprocity. Your recommendations should highlight your skills, your results, and your personality.
Create and Share Valuable Content
The third step of creating your LinkedIn personal brand is to create and share valuable content. Content is the key to showcasing your expertise, value, and personality on LinkedIn. Content can help you educate and inform your audience, engage and interact with your audience, establish your authority and credibility, increase your visibility and reach, generate leads and conversions, and enhance your reputation and influence. You can create and share different types of content on LinkedIn, such as posts, articles, videos, podcasts, slides, or documents. You should create and share content that is relevant, original, engaging, and useful for your audience. You should also use hashtags, mentions, and emojis to increase engagement and reach. You should also respond to comments and messages to build rapport and trust.
Engage and Interact With Your Network and Audience
The fourth step of creating your LinkedIn personal brand is to engage and interact with your network and audience. Your network and audience are the people who can help you achieve your goals and objectives, such as your connections, followers, prospects, clients, partners, investors, employees, employers, or influencers. You should engage and interact with them regularly and consistently by:
- Sending personalized and relevant invitations and messages to connect with them
- Commenting, liking, and sharing their content and updates
- Congratulating, endorsing, and recommending them for their achievements and skills
- Asking for feedback, advice, or referrals from them
- Offering your help, value, or support to them
- Joining and participating in groups, events, or webinars related to your industry, niche, or topic
- Creating and hosting your own groups, events, or webinars to showcase your expertise and value
By engaging and interacting with your network and audience, you can build trust, rapport, and loyalty with them. You can also increase your exposure and reach to new and potential connections and opportunities. You can also learn from them and improve your skills and knowledge.
Monitor and Measure Your Results and Performance
The fifth and final step of creating your LinkedIn personal brand is to monitor and measure your results and performance. You need to track and analyze the data and metrics that indicate how well you are achieving your goals and objectives and how well you are building and maintaining your personal brand. Some of the data and metrics that you can monitor and measure are:
- Profile views: The number of times other LinkedIn members have viewed your profile
- Search appearances: The number of times your profile has appeared in LinkedIn search results
- Post Views: The number of times other LinkedIn members have viewed your posts
- Post reactions: The number of times your posts have received likes, comments, or shares from other LinkedIn members
- Article views: The number of times other LinkedIn members have viewed your articles
- Article reactions: The number of times your articles have received likes, comments, or shares from other LinkedIn members
- Video views: The number of times other LinkedIn members have viewed your videos
- Video reactions: The number of times your videos have received likes, comments, or shares from other LinkedIn members
- Podcast views: The number of times your podcasts have been viewed by other LinkedIn members
- Podcast reactions: The number of times your podcasts have received likes, comments, or shares from other LinkedIn members
- Slide views: The number of times other LinkedIn members have viewed your slides
- Slide reactions: The number of times your slides have received likes, comments, or shares from other LinkedIn members
- Document views: The number of times other LinkedIn members have viewed your documents
- Document reactions: The number of times your documents have received likes, comments, or shares from other LinkedIn members
- Connections: The number of LinkedIn members who are connected with you
- Followers: The number of LinkedIn members who are following you
- Leads: The number of LinkedIn members who have expressed interest in your product or service
- Conversions: The number of LinkedIn members who have become your clients or customers
- Revenue: The amount of money that you have generated from your LinkedIn activities
You can use the analytics and reports provided by LinkedIn to monitor and measure your results and performance. You can also use third-party tools, such as Google Analytics, to track and analyze your website traffic and conversions from LinkedIn. You should monitor and measure your results and performance regularly and consistently and use the data and insights to evaluate and improve your LinkedIn personal brand strategy.
Action Steps
Creating an impressive LinkedIn personal brand can be challenging and time-consuming, especially if you are a busy founder, CEO, entrepreneur, or executive. You may not have the skills, the tools, or the time to create and manage your LinkedIn profile, content, and network effectively. That’s why you may consider hiring a professional agency to help you with your LinkedIn personal brand. A professional agency can help you to:
- Define your goals and audience
- Optimize your profile
- Create and share valuable content
- Engage and interact with your network and audience
Monitor and measure your results and performance. A professional agency can also save you time, money, and hassle and ensure that your LinkedIn personal brand is consistent, authentic, and impactful. If you are interested in hiring a professional agency to build your LinkedIn personal brand, please feel free to contact us or visit our website to learn more about our services and packages. We would love to help you achieve your LinkedIn personal brand goals.