20 Top Tips That Make Your LinkedIn Profile A Success

Hi, my name is Rose Christian-Miju. I'm a create— I'm the creator and founder of rosechristianmiju.com, and I help busy-driven professionals, small business owners, and entrepreneurs to use the power of LinkedIn to attract more customers to build their brands on LinkedIn to attract more sales and definitely grow their business and obviously boost their sales. All right, so today what I'll be taking you on is the 20-point checklist that you need as a business owner or as an entrepreneur or as a professional for an awesome LinkedIn profile. Now, um, the very first thing you need to in your profile is your headline. Now basically, your profile headline is the first thing someone sees after they see your name. So you need to make that headline memorable. It should, it should help someone understand the role that you want to do next, or at least contain keywords that are important to your profession. All right. Now the second thing is your photo. Now you need to choose a professional, high-quality headshot for your photograph. I recommend you having a picture always, always in your LinkedIn profile. The third thing is your email. Now you need to list out all your email addresses so that they are associated with your LinkedIn profile. Now you can set the default email, whatever your default email is, that email that would be viewed by your connections and the email that would receive— that will be viewed by connection and also the email that would receive updates from LinkedIn and different connection requests. And so on and so forth. Now the fourth thing, um, most times it's publicly known as, um, vanity URL, but I like to call it my LinkedIn URL. Now basically your LinkedIn profile has a URL. Now you would actually edit this. Now if you go to your profile, just underneath your headshot you would see, um, a, a URL where you can actually edit. Now, um, you can actually edit edit that by adding your name. So it becomes— you might see www.linkedin.com/in/ some letters and numbers. You can actually edit it and it will become www.linkedin.com/in/ your name. And my name is Ruth Koshemaju, so it becomes /RuthKoshemaju. And this actually looks more professional when you include it in your resume or in your business card or even in signature. Alright, now the fifth thing that you need to also checklist for an awesome LinkedIn profile is your web references. Or you might have a website or professional Twitter account or some links online, and you can also add them to your profile within your contact information. And basically this helps people people know more about you, especially when you have a website. And, um, the sixth thing would be your summary, right? Now, your summary— now just consider that section a mini bio about you. So in that summary, you need to highlight the best of your background, your experience, your skills. You could also provide insight to whatever leadership style you have, whatever personality you are of, whatever values you have, whatever long-term goals or outside interests. So basically, in your summary, you need to keep your reader's attention by using short paragraphs, not long paragraphs, trust me. And make it more personal by writing in the first person like I, me, my. And you also want to include your email address to make it easy for people who are not connected to you to contact you. Now, the 7th thing you need to also check in for an awesome LinkedIn profile is your work experience. Now you need to include all significant work history and include even strong keyword-rich descriptions and accomplishments under each position. So your work experience basically should be the same as it is in your hard copy resume, and you may decide to— if you want to put more details about a particular job or put less details, it all depends on you. Alright, now the 8th thing has to do with media. Now you could add different documents to your LinkedIn profile. You could add videos, you could add images, you could add audios to your profile to make it look like an online portfolio. And you definitely would embed these links in your summary, in your work experience, in your educational section on your profile. Alright. Now the 9th thing has to do with your skills and your expertise. Now in your LinkedIn profile, you need to list out all the skills, areas of expertise which are very, very important to you in your profession, and you want to highlight them definitely, because when people search for these skills and expertise and you happen to have them, your profile comes up. Now the 10th thing has to do with education. Basically, you need to include all the institutions you've attended. List your concentration, your major, your minors. Even if you're a recent graduate, include the committees that you're attached with, the groups you're active in. It really helps boost up your LinkedIn profile. All right, the 11th thing, um, you need to checklist for an awesome LinkedIn profile is, um, if you have certifications, test scores, courses that you've taken, it's very relevant information. It's good to put that there. All right, the 12th thing is if you worked on projects, projects, yeah, you could reference class projects, special work assignments, special gigs that you've done as a project. It's just a way of showcasing the skills and expertise that you've done. Um, to the, the next thing, which has to do with some recommendations, um, you need to ask for recommendations from colleagues, from managers, even from clients who know the kind of work that you don't have work with you. Uh, the next thing you need to checklist on your profile would be your awards, the honors, the publications, or the patents that you might have in your business. If you don't have any of this, it's all right. You don't have to try to get it if you don't have. If you have it, it's good, fine, put it. If you don't have it, it's all fine. The next thing to checklist would be your— if you're part of any organization If you're part of any voluntary, um, call, or you're part of any course, or you work with a foundation, you could actually provide details of your involvement in professional associations or committees that you serve. And you might even choose to list the volunteer work that you've done or the courses that you support. So basically, it has no limit. And, um, the next thing has to do with your personal details. Now, your date of birth, your marital status. So these are least important details, but you might choose not to include them in your profile. It all depends on you. Uh, the next thing, almost at the end, um, would be your status updates. Now, the thing about your— to have an awesome LinkedIn profile is that, um, you need to regularly update your status so that your network will see what you are up to. A status update could include a link to an article include information about a presentation that you are attending. It may even be a question that you, you ask and you definitely want feedback from your contacts. Next thing would be the groups. Now you definitely would like to join college alumni groups, professional associations, any industry-related group. And you would have— basically when you join groups, you join groups where you have like-minded professionals that just like you, they share the same goals, the same interests that you have, and stuff like that. The next is that you need to make your LinkedIn profile 100% complete. Don't leave any information blank, trust me, or overlook any details that may set you apart. Even if you speak 10 languages, just put it there. If you have awards, patent, courses, test scores, certifications, volunt— volunteering work that you do, courses that you support, organizations, interests. Put every information you have about yourself there. And last but not least, you need to make your LinkedIn profile public. By default, LinkedIn sets your profile definitely to be viewed by the public. So if you're, if you're a job seeker and you're looking for employees— employers rather— to employ you, you you need to make your profile public. And don't just think that, okay, if you make it— if, if it's less public, um, then you have more privacy and everything. Trust me, if you want people out there calling you for whatever skill or services that you have to offer, you need to make your profile public. All right, so I'm done, but let me just run through the entire checklist and you make sure— take a look at your LinkedIn profile and see if you have 1 to 20 complete. Number 1, headline. Number 2, photo. Number 3, email. Number 4, your LinkedIn URL, the customized LinkedIn URL. Number 5, um, your other web links, your other websites and everything. Number 6, your summary. Number 7 is your work experience. Number 8, other medias that you might have, or rather media that you have. And number 9 is your skills and expertise. Number 10 is your education. Number 11 is your certifications, test scores, and courses. Number 12 are projects. Number 13 are recommendations. 14 is, um, awards, publication, patents, whatever you have, how many you have, it doesn't really matter. And number 15 is organizations, voluntary work that you do, and courses that you support. Number 16 is any personal details that you may have, or you— or if you choose not to put them, it's fine. 17 is your status update. 18 are the groups that you're involved with. 19 is you need to make your LinkedIn profile 100% complete. And number 20 is you need to make it public. And that's all for today, folks. As I said, as I said at the beginning, I'm Ruth, uh, Kushimiju, founder of ruthkushimiju.com. So definitely, if you need help in making this checklist 100% complete for your LinkedIn profile, for your business, for whatever service or product that you have to offer, and you feel doing it by yourself is going to take a whole lot of time, why don't you just click on the link below and let me know— or rather, click on the link below and definitely you will find an opportunity to get this done for you at no time and at a cost-effective way. So have fun, you guys, and I will see you again on my next LinkedIn training video. Bye!