It really matters.

Your profile on LinkedIn is a necessary part of personal branding. As any other successful brand, it should be credible and make a good first impression. People's willingness for business communication directly depends on it.

As more and more people turn to LinkedIn looking for employees, partners, customers, and other forms of business cooperation, a powerful personal profile has particular importance. Moreover, it's a great first step to become an influencer.

Let's Start With The Basics

There's no rush :)

First, let's look at Profile Strength Meter created by LinkedIn itself. It consists of 7 simple steps:

1. Download a professional photo

Ask yourself - would you like to connect with a person without a profile picture?

2. Create a headline and include your industry and profession

Use brief and informative words that help people realize quickly who you are and what you do.

3. Write a summary

The summary section is a way to give users an overview of your professional activity.

4. Add your current position and work history

Previous work history is a meaningful part of your image.

5. Add skills and expertise

To position yourself as an expert in any industry, add the skills you have.

6. Include a place of education

This step not only gives your visitors information about the level of education, but allows you to find people from the same university or school and connect them.

1. Get connected

In order to achieve a completed profile, Linkedin requires at least 50 connections. A number of connections are also an important thing for your personal brand. A man is known by his friends.

To get All-Star Profile strength you should do all the steps above. These recommendations are based on LinkedIn statistics and help you to build the network successfully.

What's next? A guide, finally!

Reading about the default recommendations, you probably wondered what is the best way to implement them. That's what is our guide about!

Optimize Your Profile Photo

For this purpose we recommend you to hire a professional photographer. Amateurish photos are appropriate on social networks not connected to business, meanwhile, LinkedIn requires to look more formal. Therefore, choose a professional outfit and use a plain nondescript background. Remember to keep a camera close to your eye level and use lots of lights as your face is the main object in the photo. To make your photo unlike a mug shot, don't forget to smile :)

Your background picture leaves an additional visual impression. Choоse a good-quality background picture connected to your company, occupation, or industry.

Personalize the URL

This step makes your profile much easier to find.

1. Log into your LinkedIn account and click the Me icon > View Profile.

2. On the profile page, click Edit your public profile & URL.

3. So you see a new window of Public Profile Settings. Choose a section called Edit Your Custom URL. Click on the pencil to edit your URL.

Your custom URL can have 5-30 letters or numbers. Don't use spaces, symbols, or special characters. We recommend using a variation of your name and/or your professional brand since you share this URL with people. It makes your URL not only informative and easy to find but unique.

Headline

Imagine your headline is a calling card. Write a headline short and clear. It should consist of the most relevant key-words describing your profession and industry. There is also a way to be more creative and write a slogan that drives business.

Summary

Writing a summary usually seems a great challenge. But the secret of a powerful summary is its sincerity and personality that gives you a chance to stand out from thousands of users on LinkedIn.

Write briefly not only about your job, but skills, experience, accomplishments, and goals. Imagine you have to introduce yourself to a stranger and make the greatest impression.

Also, you should write a catchy informative beginning to attend a user who is running into your profile. Dwell on the questions like "What characteristics distinguish me from other people?", "Why did I choose and why do I love my job?", "What are my higher goals?" - everything that makes you and what you do valuable.

Don't forget to update your summary and make it keyword-rich.

Share And Post Content

Having articles in your profile increases your professional authority. Remember that people share more positive posts, serious topics cause discussions.

Grow LinkedIn Network

The number and quality of connections are also a part of your personal brand. To expand the reach, grow the network strategically. First, connect your acquaintances: colleagues, teachers, friends. Then find people in groups connected to the target audience, use the settings of search on LinkedIn.

This simple advice will help you to become an interesting and noticeable person on LinkedIn. Are you aware of more insights? Share in the comments!

Before we start, let's determine the reasons why LinkedIn is so effective for lead generation. The point is, LinkedIn has 722 million members from more than 200 countries, 55 million registered companies and a great number of targeting characteristics. All this makes LinkedIn a perfect platform for reaching out to your potential clients, employees or partners.

Outbound sales is a great way to increase awarness of your product or service and get customers. But large scale requires productive solutions. Which is where cold messaging comes in handy.

So why not?

Some Preparation Would Be Nice

1. Before start sending messages to hundreds of people, make sure your profile inspiers trust.

2. Define a proper target. A basic difference between spam and cold messages is targeting. Dwell on the location, profession, years of experience of the audience... or should they have a dog? Never mind. Do it.

3. To help your plan, ask yourself several qustions. Are you trying to inform, motivate, persuade, solicit feedback, make a request, or smooth ruffled feathers? What must be accomplished with this message? What does the reader need to know, to understand, to act upon?

4. Try to find a common ground. Check mutual connections or groups and use this information in messages to make a person more open to you. People usually tend to ignore mysterious strangers...

5. Prepare several strategies and write a report describing its results. This simple method lets you see which particular strategy is the most powerful for your campaign.

Let's Get Down to Brass Tasks

Well, you optimized your profile, defined a target, dreamed a little... It's high time to start messaging.

There are some recommendations to make your message catchy and encouraging to reply.

• Avoid the use of industry jargon, complex sentences, and inaccurate language
• Write in a straightforward manner and make your writing easily understood by any adult
• Use active voice instead of passive one. Active voice is much stronger and simplier. For example, instead of "it was stated to me", say "she described to me"
• Avoid fussy endings such as -ion, -ing, and -ness. For example, instead of "let's take the time for contemplating", just say "let's contemplate"
• Give a reason to reply. To keep the dialogue active, ask personal questions at the end of the message
• Personalize your messages. Make every person you write feel special. Mention the information that avaliable on the profile: their name, industry, location, company and so on
• Don't apologize. "Confidence is the most beautiful thing you can posess." (с) Blake Lively

That's the way it's supposed to look:

"Hi {First Name}! I've just run across your profile and I see you're a great specialist in {Industry Name}. Would love to connect!"

Or...

"Hi {First Name}! I see we have some mutual connections from {Industry or Company Name}. I'd love to connect and learn more about your occupation!"

Alternatively...

"Hi {First Name}! I see we are both from {Industry Name}. I'd love to connect to share experience."

So which methods do you prefer for reaching out to new leads on LinkedIn?