You may think your LinkedIn profile is finished when you finally write that perfect About section, publish that witty Headline (with lots of eye-catching emojis!), and find the nicest picture of yourself for your profile photo. But did you know that there are a few lesser-known aspects to your profile that you can utilise to help spread your profile to more potential connections?
There are a few “secret” ways to boost your LinkedIn profile, from adding website links to specific hashtags that’ll catch people’s attention. If you’re curious about ways to improve your LinkedIn profile, read on!
Whether you’re a freelancer or a C-suite industry worker, including links to your website on your LinkedIn page will drive engagement to your company’s site, your portfolio, or even your social media channels!
There are a few different spots you can include a link on your LinkedIn profile: your contact information, your About section, your Experience section, Featured links (which we’ll talk about more below), and even right under your name on your profile!
Put a link somewhere – or everywhere! – and see how your engagement increases.
Introduced in 2020, the Featured section is often missing from LinkedIn personal pages. This is where you can include LinkedIn posts you’re proud of, links to your website, articles you’ve published, and some external media like documents or images.
These posts are an opportunity to showcase what is important to you right now, so include recent and relevant posts! Even if you don’t have many posts to publish in your Featured section just yet, feature something you’re proud of or an important web link and it’ll fill up your profile nicely.
We talked at the beginning about the importance of a nice profile picture, but what about your banner image? Here at Pitch121, we love a good banner image, and tell all our clients to pick their best shots: whether it’s you engaging in a hobby you love, speaking at a professional event, or you doing something you love doing, pictures improve your connection rate pretty significantly. People love to see people – add some pictures to your profile!
Down near the bottom of your profile is a section titled Recommendations, where past or present co-workers, clients, prospects or partners can leave a comment recommending you for skills related to your field. Asking people for recommendations doesn’t have to be embarrassing – offer to give one in return if they give you one! Or save them time by making a suggestion so it is easy for them.
Recommendations can set your profile apart from others by offering social proof and insight on how you work by others (who are more likely to boost your skills than you ever would yourself!). They’re like the cover letter to your profile’s resume– one tells people what you’ve done, and the other tells people why you’re good at it.
Here’s one that not many people utilise: Creator Mode on LinkedIn offers a few different functionalities, but one of our favourites is the featured hashtags you can put on your profile. These appear under your name and headline and give first-time viewers of your profile a glimpse at the kinds of topics you’re passionate about and post about frequently. Consider putting your profile into Creator Mode and adding some hashtags – people will be more likely to connect with people they have passions in common with. As an added bonus, when you search for a keyword on LinkedIn, you are more likely to come up in the search via your hashtag, so you may increase your profile views as well.
Okay, now your LinkedIn profile is finished!
… Just kidding. There’s so many more ways to refine your profile, but the number one thing we’d always recommend is to keep it updated regularly and add some personality to it, so you are standout and memorable.
Check in every now and then to update everything so it is in line with the topics you’re talking about and relevant to the audience you are talking to, everything from your headline, skills, pin your best posts in your Featured section, and change your pictures every so often… there’s lots of ways to keep your profile fresh so once keep coming back to it.
If you’re looking for more LinkedIn tips, we’re the resident experts! Take a look at the profile audit questionnaire. We can audit your team’s profiles to see who your LinkedIn superstars are.
