Building Your Personal Brand: Let's Talk about LinkedIn
Nov 08, 2021
“LinkedIn is no longer an online resume. It’s your digital reputation” - Jill Rowley
Linkedin was once known for being a professional space, where you searched for jobs and posted your experience and online resume. So much has changed so much in the last 5 years!
LinkedIn has become a powerhouse for helping you grow your personal and professional network online. It has been shown to be an effective tool to generate business leads and find power partners that can help refer your business. Many users generate business opportunities from the use of LinkedIn.
The goal: LinkedIn is best used as a social networking platform and a place to showcase your expertise. The day-to-day operations for using LinkedIn will be to connect with potential future clients and power partners and to post relevant educational and value-added content.
You can focus on connecting and building the know, like, and trust factor with your future clients. If you have no leads, you have no business. Linkedin is a powerhouse when it comes to building out the lead generation leg of your business.
Typical users of LinkedIn as of 2020, according to www.omnicoreagency.com and kinsta.com, and oberlo.com are:
• 740 million users in more than 200 countries and territories across the globe
• 690 million+ professionals
• 43% are female (326 million), 57% male (430 million)
• 80% of people on LinkedIn drive business decisions
• Age breakdown:
⁃ 19% 18-24
⁃ 60% 25-34
⁃ 17.5% 35-54
⁃ 2.9% 55+
• Location:
⁃ North America: 196 million+
⁃ Europe: 198 million+
⁃ Asia Pacific: 206 million+
⁃ Latin America: 114 million+
⁃ Middle East and Africa: 39 million+
• Half of all US adults with college degrees use LinkedIn
• 61 million are senior-level influencers
• More than 55 million companies are listed on LinkedIn
• 33% of B2B decision makers use LinkedIn to research purchases
• 4 out of 5 people on LinkedIn “drive business decisions”
• 96% of B2B content marketers use LinkedIn for organic social marketing (LinkedIn is a place where people expect and seek out business-related content)
• 37% of US adults are signed up to LinkedIn
• In 2021, Hubspot found that LinkedIn is 277% more effective at generating leads than Facebook and Twitter
• Mobile traffic is 57%
• Executives rate LinkedIn as their best choice for professionally relevant content
• According to Business Insider, 2021 Linkedin is the most “trusted social platform in the world”
LinkedIn Content:
• 6 out of 10 users actively look for industry insights on LinkedIn
• LinkedIn live streams increased by 60% in 2021
• There are 2 million active publishers on LinkedIn
• Long-form content (1,900+ words) performs better on LinkedIn
• 1 million LinkedIn users publish content weekly
• 45% of content readers on LinkedIn fall under upper management in companies
• LinkedIn posts with images get 2x higher engagement
• LinkedIn users are 20x more likely to re-share a video post
• How To List posts perform the best on LinkedIn
• Articles with titles between 40-49 characters perform the best on LinkedIn
• You are 7x more likely to be found if you have a profile picture
• A complete profile will get you 21x more profile views and 36x more messages
LinkedIn Getting Started Checklist:
1) Create a personal profile on LinkedIn at www.linkedin.com.
2) Upload a professional-looking photograph. This is your first impression, make sure it is a professional photo. If you are a professional that typically wears a 3-piece suit then you can reflect that in your picture. If you are a freelancer that primarily works from home, post a picture that shows you are approachable and reflects this. You do not need to hire a photographer and spend lots of money to get this photograph. Most phones these days have a camera that will work just fine, make sure you take a picture where there is good lighting.
3) Complete your location and industry. Most recruiters search by location and industry, so do future clients.
4) Write your summary. This is an opportunity to communicate and share a bit about you and your experiences. It is like a professional bio, where you can expand upon your experience. Your summary should be 3-5 short paragraphs. Help people get to know you and share what you are all about. A great example to refer to is my husband’s LinkedIn profile, Scott Aaron (see below), I advise that you search him and check out his summary for guidance.
5) Complete your headline. LinkedIn will automatically default your current job title as your headline, however, if this isn’t the main thing you want to be known for, you can edit it. Choose terms for your headline that are searchable and that will capture your audience's attention. For example, if you are a social media manager, make sure you put this in your headline, so your audience knows what it is you do and can search for.
6) Complete your experiences. Add the different companies and businesses you have worked for along with any special metrics or accomplishments. If you own a business or company, also create a company page. It will allow you to tell your company’s story, engage with followers, share opportunities and build your reputation online.
7) Add some “skills” that you would like to highlight that people can endorse you for.
8) Fill out the education section
9) You can now add a “featured” section (as of 2021). Take the time to think about where you would like to send your potential clients to next after viewing your LinkedIn profile.
For example, you can put your podcast link, your website, your calendar link and more under the featured section. You can even add articles you would like to highlight to show your expertise.
If you would like to learn more about how to properly optimize your LinkedIn profile you can download Scott’s free “How to create your perfect profile on LinkedIn Guide” at: scottaaron.net
Metrics to measure success on LinkedIn:
1) Impressions- are the total number of times your post has been seen. When viewing impressions data you gain additional insights such as:
Determining the best time to post. You can identify what days/when your posts are seen most often by your ideal audience.
What posts to repurpose or feature. You can learn which posts are doing well so you know what to create more of.
Long-term trends. You can learn what content is doing well and what is not.
2) CTR (click-through rate)
By monitoring your click-through rate, you can see if your content is effective at getting your audience to take action.
3) Engagement Rate- this is the best metric for determining the quality and relevancy of your content.
4) Follower Demographics- Who is liking what you're saying? You need more than to reach an audience, you want to make sure you are reaching the “right” audience. Look at your follower demographics to understand who your content reaches.
5) Followers: Total and organic. You should be actively increasing your total followers. We will discuss this more in the “grow your community” section of this book.
Additional Tips: Update your cover photo (show what you do, ie: the speaker is you on stage; relationship counselor- you talking to a couple; teacher- you teaching; etc).
In your heading, it is SEO searchable, so make sure you put what you want people to search for.
Create content that adds value for your audience. It’s not about YOU. It is about them. We will dive more into content creation, in that chapter, but getting started on LinkedIn, you can simply start by sharing a few posts a week. Your thoughts on a topic in your industry, respond with your thoughts on a recent article, or post something related to your industry.
If you want to know more about how to absolutely crush it on LinkedIn, check out my husband, Scott Aaron at: scottaaron.net
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