Have you updated your LinkedIn profile recently? Or even fully built it out? If not, it's time to do it.
Because with more than 332 million users, LinkedIn is the largest and fastest growing professional social media platform in the world. People are joining at a rate of two per second. People in your industry.
For example, here's how many LinkedIn members in the U.S. have these words in their titles:
- Healthcare facility manager - 138,194
- Healthcare architect - 4,141
- Healthcare designer - 69.526
- Healthcare engineer - 163,674
- Healthcare planner - 2,569
Maybe you're thinking, "Why bother? I don't have time to mess around with this. I'm not looking for a job."
LinkedIn is not only for job seekers. That's a myth. LinkedIn is a place to find out information -- about colleagues, clients, potential clients, industry trends, how to do your job better, and so much more.
It's also a place to represent yourself and the company you work for. What information about yourself do you want the professional world to know? Here's some suggestions for filling out your profile:
- Include a professional-looking headshot that frames your face
- Don’t simply list your title; write a headline that includes keywords that describe what you do
- Write a Summary that tells who you are and why are doing what you do. It should reflect your personality.
- Fill out your Experience with your responsibilities, accomplishments, and what you learned on the job
- Fill out as many of the other areas as you can – Publications, Projects, Credentials, Skills & Endorsements (pick 10 that are most relevant), Education
- Get recommendations (different than endorsements) from colleagues
- Set your settings (click on your picture in the upper right hand corner>Privacy & Settings)
I also love these ideas from LinkedIn expert Kristina Jaramillo on How to Transform Your LinkedIn Profile Into a Marketing Tool.
TIP: Turn off your Activity Broadcasts in the Settings panel while you're updating your profile so all your connections don't get notices of every change you've made. That's annoying.
For more ideas on how to be more active on LinkedIn, download my tip sheet, 6 Ways to Better Engage on LinkedIn.
Want get a critique of your LinkedIn profile? Contact me, and if you're among the first 10 people to do this, I'll take a quick look and give you some free pointers.
P.S. Please do me a favor -- if you liked this post and like this blog, please share it with others by sending them the link and/or post it on your Twitter, LinkedIn, or Facebook, etc. Also, don't forget to subscribe, so you'll get emails when new content is posted. Thanks!
