Your LinkedIn profile

Think about your profile as you would your sales funnel for your website. Some people who come across you have no idea who you are or what you do, whilst others know you well and follow you / read your content regularly. Here’s how to move people through your sales funnel on LinkedIn.

Awareness

Think of these sections & activities as the things people scan or search on when they are looking for a particular type of person, or someone with a certain skillset.

1. LinkedIn allocates you a random identifier, but you can personalise it in your URL https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicky-mckenna/
2. Add professionally relevant and engaging headshot
3. Use the banner area behind your headshot to show what you do in a visual way
4. Make sure your headline says succinctly what you do, how you help people or businesses and whether your target any specific sectors / groups of people – use customer facing language and think impact over detail here
5. Connect the roles in your “experience” section to the correct company page so that their logo shows in your profile
6. Curate your audience – the more relevant your connections are to what you are looking to achieve today, the better reach your content will have
7. Follow people and companies who share relevant content – they’ll often follow you back!

Discovery

These sections and activities are all about piquing interest to read more once your target has become aware of you.

1. Use the “About” section to talk in more detail about what you do, the problems you solve and who you serve. Remember to use keywords throughout that you want to be found for as people use a wide variety of tools to search within LinkedIn. If you are able to share some highlight results, this is a great place to do it. Last but not least, don’t forget a strong call to action!
2. Post content which is relevant and useful for your audience – at least twice a week. Don’t forget that usually the posts with the biggest reach share personal (but relevant) content, so keep up a mix of useful and relevant insights that support your website content and personal opinion
3. Add up to 3 hashtags for keywords you’d like to be found for on each post
4. Enable the “featured” section, and showcase content which demonstrates most clearly what you do
5. In the experience section, update your role descriptions through the lens of today. Things move on, so you may want to highlight different skills or achievements depending on how you want to present yourself now. Remember to keep it real.
6. Not everyone who comes across you will recognise the companies you’ve work for, so add web links or documents that demonstrate what they do, or successes you had with them, to the most recent roles. Stay privacy compliant.
7. Enable the skills section, and add relevant skills from the search terms offered. Pin the top 3 you want to be recognised for at the top – if you’re stuck for choice, pick ones with the most endorsements

Engagement

These activities and sections are all about encouraging people to interact with you.

1. Check that your contact info is up to date
2. Validate that licenses and certifications relevant to what you do are showcased accurately
3. Add a short presentation or video about you to your featured section
4. Create a target list of who you’d like to connect with – follow them and engage with their content so they start to recognise your name before messaging them
5. Check and respond to invitations and messages in your inbox daily
6. Withdraw outstanding invitations (once you have about 800, LinkedIn marks down your Social Selling score)
7. There are weeks that you have plenty to say, and others when your brain goes blank. Keep a library of great posts you see to use as inspiration when you are stuck
8. Comment or share other people’s posts – try to start a genuine conversation
9. If you have a great reaction to one of your posts, repost it into up to 3 relevant groups that you are part of

Loyalty

Just because you are connected with people, it doesn’t mean that they are looking for services like the ones you are promoting. Gaining loyalty is all about activities that keep you top of mind for when either they are, or more likely, when they are asked by one of their own contacts for a referral.

1. Review your “About” section from time to time – are you highlighting your strongest knowledge or expertise? Are you demonstrating clearly the value of what you do for your customers? Do your target keywords need updating?
2. Ask for recommendations – showcase the most relevant ones that people write for you. Also, remember, givers gain, so write recommendations and endorse skills for others in your network
3. Establish yourself as a Thought Leader – publish White- Papers etc
4. Promote your events in your posts – consider LinkedIn live
5. Check out who has viewed your profile / interacted with your posts – connect with the ones you’d like to have in your curated network
6. Check out your analytics about once a month – stand back and review which kinds of content have worked well for you and which haven’t

Summary

Over lockdown, LinkedIn became a workhorse for online networking. Whilst we’re all enjoying networking in person again, LinkedIn has helped individuals and businesses up their game in terms of networking online, and Social Selling has become a marketing activity that’s here to stay.

If you’d like to know more about how Social Selling works and have a chat about whether it might be a good tactic for you, please contact us for a chat.