We always offer to help our clients’ employees clean up their LinkedIn profiles through either a webinar or one-on-one help. You might be surprised the number of people who neglect their LinkedIn profile.
There’s a number of reasons to make sure your LinkedIn profile shines, here are a few:
- It’s a reflection on your employer and the way you do business. If your profile is sloppy and incomplete, we’re going to extrapolate that that is how you do business, and that your employer is okay with that.
- You LinkedIn profile indexes very well in google. Unless you have a very common name in your industry, your LinkedIn profile will likely be one of the top 5 google search results for your name.
- People do their research online. We almost never do business (or take a call) with someone unless we’ve researched them on LinkedIn first.
- Your business partners are looking at your profile, just like your prospects and clients.
Hopefully that gives you pause to consider updating your LinkedIn profile.
Here’s some things you should do first to clean up your profile.
1.) Get a decent picture. Don’t use one from “way back when” when you were 20 pounds lighter and had fewer wrinkles. Use a current picture, mostly featuring your face (unless you’re using a professional photo that knows how to frame a more relaxed shot).
2.) Pay attention to the area to the right of your photo. All of those lines are editable. LinkedIn will default to “something” in that space if you don’t tell them what to put there. The title line doesn’t have to be your official title, it could be a 6-7 word elevator pitch.
3.) Get a personalized LinkedIn URL. By default, your public profile URL will use your member number. You can change that to something more memorable and easily recognized.
4.) Complete your contact info section. It’s amazing how many people fail to list all their business contact info here, and it’s almost as surprising how many people have personal info listed. Most people should stick to listing only business contact information unless you routinely give out your personal cell number and email address.
5.) Complete your summary section. The summary section is the first place we look. It’s much easier to read a summary of your career and what you are about. Don’t make someone scroll through your employment section and try to piece it together. Put together a nice summary of who your are and what you do. You can even include brochures and other attachments in this section.
There are many more sections to your LinkedIn profile that we could address, but these five tips should get your profile looking in tip-top shape for networking and make you stand out from the crowd.
About AgencyEvolved
AgencyEvolved provides personalized marketing and consulting services for independent insurance agencies, brokers, wholesalers, and other insurance organizations.
Founded by an insurance industry veteran with more than 40 years of experience, AgencyEvolved combines practical insurance knowledge with thoughtful marketing strategy. We help clients strengthen their brands, communicate what makes them different, and build lasting relationships with the customers and communities they serve.
We work with a limited number of clients, providing hands-on attention and customized solutions rather than standardized marketing packages.
Our services include website design and management, content creation, social media, email marketing, digital advertising, branding, and strategic marketing consulting.
Marketing built around your business. Not the other way around.