How to have the WOW factor with your LinkedIn Profile

By Marcia Reece and Carol Naff

Does your LinkedIn Profile need a WOW factor?

Picture this: What would it be like to walk into a room to find only your ideal prospects? Yes, absolutely everyone there needs your service or product. LinkedIn is the only business-dedicated social media to provide this opportunity for you. You can search for specific people, find groups that meet your parameters, and request introductions to people you want to meet.

Recently, Carol had a request for an introduction to someone in her connections. Three people in her network were connected to this person. She sent a request for introductions to them. Two of the three responded that they would be happy to make the introduction. Yes, we are on LinkedIn to be helpful and go givers.

LinkedIn is the perfect place for you to practice Inbound Marketing. (See Inbound Marketing Strategies below) Online networking has opened the floodgates for professional online profiles — the kind you place on LinkedIn needs to put you heads and shoulders over your competitors and make sure you stand out as the “go to” expert to build your brand, your business, and your bank account.

Here are several ways to gain a competitive edge:

• Establish your expertise: Focus the content on your professional expertise, benefits, and accomplishments. Be sure to include your current and past employment, education, and industry. Scatter relevant keywords throughout your profile to build your SEO optimization.
• Captivate your audience: Create an opening summary that sells. Size up what’s important to your audience. Use enticing words and captivating phrases.
• Write outside the box: Avoid clichés and work hard to paint fresh word pictures that help readers understand your specialness. Use specifics. Be authentic. And within the bounds of business communication, write like you talk.
• Rightsized, not supersize: Set your sights on making your profile neither too long nor too short. There’s no rule about exact profile length. Make every word sell you, your business, and your specialties.
• Write must-read robust headlines: Another secret to successful profile writing is the power headline! It’s the headline that pulls readers into your profile.
• Don’t oversell your versatility: Often people make the mistake of cobbling together their qualifications and come off looking like jacks of all trades (and masters of none). Folks are seeking to work with specialists, not generalists.
• Don’t overdo self-praise: Hold back on empty adjectives like superior, exclusive, outstanding, and so forth when you describe your skills or qualities. Without backing up your claims, no one believes them anyway. Factually explain how you made or saved money, how you delivered on a goal, how you received top marks for performance.

You’re more likely to be believed when you get strong recommendations. Don’t be shy about asking for them and be sure to reciprocate and write for your contacts.

• Don’t regurgitate your resume: Include data in your profile that will help you get your desired outcome; business, clients, or an interview. A cultural fit with the reader is key; add such information as your participation in amateur sports (competitiveness), five favorite books (thinking quality); and civic service organizations (community-orientation), for instance. Politics? No, unless you’re applying to a political party. Religious affiliation? No, unless you’re applying to a church or ministry.
• Don’t be a victim to perilous posting: Don’t post anything you don’t want the entire world to see. Treat your LinkedIn page with the utmost care and professional respect you bring to your clients, customers, and coworkers. This is not the place to be a smarty pants.

Treat all personal identity information like a classified document to keep the identity thieves away. Don’t put your home address, social security number, driver’s or professional license numbers, or family information in your profile. Restrict contact information to your phone number and e-mail, and, if you have one, a post office box address.

Because her profile lists her #1 best-selling author status, Marcia has been contacted by a number of first-time authors to help them maximize their author revenues. Marcia enjoys helping authors look outside the traditional “box” and find multiple revenue channels as well as helping authors become #1 Bestsellers.

Marcia and Carol both invite you to look at their profiles. We have taken the time to fully maximize our LinkedIn profiles and they are powerfully effective. We do get asked why LinkedIn is valuable and why put the effort into your profile. And we get inquiries about our services. So should you have a great LinkedIn profile that gets results with Inbound Marketing? Yes, these are a few reasons:

• It has millions of members
• It shows up at the top of Google searches when people are researching you
• It’s the ultimate personal branding platform

 

With the right profile powerfully written and positioned, LinkedIn is a revenue-generating, social media money maker!

 

Just like we have helped so many professionals turn their profile into a powerhouse pillar of their brand, we would like to help you, too. In order to work with us privately, email us to inquire if we would be a good match to help you. Since we want to develop a better profile to help you get the results you want, we are offering to revise your LinkedIn profile summary. In addition, you will receive tips for making the rest of your profile effective. Be sure to take advantage of this special offer by June 10 during our Spring Sale. Mention this post to receive our special price. Don’t delay; your LinkedIn brand has never been more valuable to achieve the results of your dreams.  #speaker #coach #No1BestSellingAuthor #relationshipmarketing #LinkedIn #MarciaReece #CarolNaff #WaysToBeFound #Marketing #LeadGeneration #LinkedInTips #WOWFactor #LinkedInProfile #SpecialOffer #InboundMarketing

marciaok@yahoo.com

carolnaff@comcast.net

Carol Naff is a Professional Coach, a Certified Email Marketing Strategist, and expert in creative marketing and business development. She founded Mariner Company in 2000, a coaching and consulting business with more than 15 years prior experience in developing marketing strategies for creative business owners to get more clients and how to come in #1 in your job search. MarinerCo.com. Follow my blog at CarolNaff.me Complete the business and job search assessment to help you identify what you need to succeed at Marinerco.com

Marcia Reece, the inventor of Sidewalk Chalk, is the #1 Bestselling author of Secrets of the Marriage Mouse and The Ultimate Online Media Director also was the inventor of Gel-eez, the very first gel-filled wrist rest for keyboard and mouse users.  She founded Aspen Support Group in 1998 and uses her creative energies to help many dozen entrepreneurs and authors take their ideas to products and their products to the shelves of American Retailers.  Her books are available on Amazon.com Follow her blog at https://marciaok.wordpress.com