07939 544413 stuart@limeslade.com

The first thing I wrote about when I set up Limeslade Consulting was LinkedIn. I lamented the number of people who don’t seem to get it. And yet there are many more who do, and who use it regularly. But lots of you ignored me – at your peril!

LinkedIn is the second biggest social media site in the UK. Bigger than Twitter or Instagram. It’s increasingly becoming a go-to tool for all manner of business activities.

  • Need a new job? It’ll be advertised on LinkedIn.
  • Need a new job? Your future employer will check your profile before your interview.
  • Need to engage an expert / lawyer / professional? a lot of people go straight to LinkedIn.
  • Hiring a new person? You’ll probably check them out on LinkedIn.

Those are just a few examples.

There are around 500 MILLION LinkedIn users now. 106 million of those are on the site regularly, and there are 2 people signing up each second. A significant number of those people are involved in professional services. I saw a recent statistic suggesting around 80% of lawyers are on LinkedIn.

 

Having established it matters, what do you need to do about it?

It amazes me how many people haven’t bothered to check their profiles. As an example, my former employer changed its name in April 2017. However, on LinkedIn there are still over 100 people working at parts of that business that are either inactive or don’t exist in the UK. That means around 30% of the workforce haven’t updated, or haven’t updated correctly their profiles.

From what I’ve seen, 30% is actually quite good. There are businesses out there where nobody has a complete or even half-complete profile, let alone one that will work with search engines and return some sort of results.

So what do you need to do? Here are a few tips for starters:

How LinkedIn intros should be done – click for full-size

  • Update the intro – that opening paragraph or two are all important. The search engines love them. There are thousands if not millions of people out there like you. In order to stand out, you need to highlight the key skills people are likely to be looking for that you want them to buy. See the image that accompanies this piece as one pretty good example of the intro. Personally I’d do it third person, as that gets your name out there more, but this one’s good to go…
  • Get your job and company right – This really shouldn’t be rocket science. Your current job (or jobs). What is it? Who do you work for. If your company has changed, then put an end date on your previous company name. Don’t confuse people, it just looks like you don’t know what you’re doing.
  • Add Articles, Interests, etc – If you’ve got articles you’ve published, blogs, etc – get them listed on your profile.
  • Get some backlinks – this is the really clever bit. Links that go into your profile are among the most important factors in raising it up the search engines. Getting those backlinks is almost impossible, but you can do part of the work yourself. If you write an article for your website, get the website person to link to your LinkedIn profile. If you write for a publication, get them to do the same.

There are other things to do, but if you just update those key points, then you’ll be well on the way to looking like a more productive and employable prospect. In turn your prospective customers and employers are likely to take you far more seriously.

Don’t wait until tomorrow – get it done today. And if you’re busy, I can help. For as little as £50 let me review and provide you with a report on how to improve your profile to ensure you stand out from the rest of your peers.

Finally – for crying out loud, check the spelling will you? I see awful typos on a daily basis. There’s someone I know who’s a business development ‘manger’ – appropriate at Christmas, but not at other times of the year…