[Updated] 11 Tips to Build Your Personal Brand on Linkedin

LinkedIn can be extremely useful—especially when you’re aware of all the little hidden tricks that don’t get nearly all the exposure that they deserve. It’s great for personal branding and can help you build a powerful presence on the most popular social network for professionals. Here’s eleven tips to help you optimize your Linkedin profile without having to call your techie friends.

1. Completeness. Make sure that every section of your profile has been completed and that there are no blank spaces or obvious gaps. Your LinkedIn profile is your online resume, so treat it with the same level of seriousness you would your normal resume. Here’s what you need to have completed to have an ‘All-Star’ status:

• You need to add your industry and location
• A current position
• Two past positions
• Your education information
• A minimum of 3 skills
• A professional profile picture that represents your industry. This is critical for your Linkedin success! For example, if you are a Creative Director, you might want to have more of an edgier photo as opposed to a CEO, who would want to have on a suit in a traditional pose. Having the same picture on multiple social media channels like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Google+ will help build your personal brand.
• At least 50 connections

2. Create Your Vanity URL. When you create your LinkedIn profile, the default URL that you get doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue. Instead of a URL with a million confusing numbers at the end, you need to create one like this: http://www.linkedin.com/in/lisadougherty. This URL is far more friendly from an SEO point of view and is a vital opportunity to have your profile rank higher in Google and to make it easier for people to find you. Go here and click “customize your public profile URL” on the right hand side.

3. Get Recommendations. It is important to have at least three recommendations from colleagues, management, people you manage, vendors or customers. Recommendations now appear right below your job description for a certain position. Linkedin no longer requires three recommendations anymore to have a complete (or “All-Star”) status but it is still considered a best practice. Recommendations are written for specific roles and show up underneath each position in which they are written. They are very different from Endorsements and serve a different purpose.

4. Get Endorsements. Endorsements are one-click acknowledgments from your network showing that you are being recognized for a certain skill. If you would like to learn more about Endorsements, check out this earlier blog post. The reason endorsements are  important to your profile is for search results. The more endorsements you have for a specific skill, the more likely that you’ll come up in the search results when someone is searching for that skill. For example: I have 59 people who have endorsed me for Social Media Marketing. When a hiring manager or recruiter is searching for people with the skill ‘social media marketing’, it is more likely that I will come up somewhere on the first few pages of the search results.

5. Create “Sexier”  Website/Blog Links. Don’t list the generic “website” but brand it with your company name or blog name to make those links more appealing to people who view your profile. For example, if you want to include a link to your blog, rather than choosing LinkedIn’s standard “Blog” anchor text, customize it to include keywords that indicate what your blog is about like, “Social Media Blog or BrandLove, LLC Blog.”  This will help optimize your profile and drive Google PageRank to your other web properties. Each profile can display up to three website links like this, and they can be customized by editing your profile, clicking edit on your website links, and selecting “other” in the drop-down menu to customize the anchor text.

6. Rearrange Your Profile. LinkedIn enables you to reorder the sections of their profile in any way you prefer. When in edit mode on your profile, hover your mouse over the title of each section. Your mouse will turn into a four-arrowed icon, at which point you can click then drag and drop to another position on your profile.

7. Search Engine Optimize Your Profile. You can also optimize your profile to get found by people searching LinkedIn for key terms with which you want to be associated.  Add these keywords to various sections of your profile such as your summary (up to 2,000 characters), Specialties (up to 500 characters), job title (up to 100 characters), career history and personal interests (up to 1,000 characters.) 
8. Use Keywords in Your Headline. The headline (up to 120 characters) is the first thing people see when they go to your LinkedIn profile. Unless you change it, your headline will appear as your current or last position held. Since this headline will appear in various places on LinkedIn, you want it to be more descriptive. The Linkedin algorithm seems to put a lot of emphasis on the words used in the headline when ranking people, so make sure it includes your USP, benefits your company offers or your geographic location if you serve a specific area.

9. Add Projects. I highly recommend adding a projects section to your profile, especially if you are a Consultant or Freelancer. By adding this section, it will allow you to name your project and input a URL. This then turns the title of the project into a hyperlink, leading the viewer to the project’s website and thus creating an inbound link. You can specifically relate your project to a position that you hold or have held. This can be a great way to show off your expertise in a current or previous position by showing viewers evidence that you know your stuff. The best part is that you can add “Team Members.” If you are connected to your collaborators on Linkedin, you can add them here and their name will appear as a hyperlink to their LinkedIn profile.

10. Join Groups. If there are groups related to your industry or niche then make sure that you join them and, if at all possible, be an active participant in them. This raises your profile to get it noticed by other industry contacts and you’re also adding value to LinkedIn, which in turn, adds value to your own profile. Just remember, if you’re going to participate in group discussions, groups are about COMMUNITY not YOU. You should participate by all means, but to support the community not sell yourself or your services. Did you know? If you’re a member of the same group as another user, you can bypass the need to be a first degree connection in order to message them. In addition, group members are also able to view the profiles of other members of the same group without being connected. Join more groups to enable more messaging and profile viewership capabilities. You can join up to 50 groups.

11. Build Your Network. Once your profile is in good shape, work on building your network. Here are some things to keep in mind: when asking to connect with someone, use “we’ve done business together” rather than “friend.” Be sure to personalize any requests to connect with how you know the person or where you met or who you have in common.  If you do decide to try to connect with someone that may not know you well, be absolutely sure that you defend your network invite in the personal note section, such as saying you just purchased their book or saw them speak at a major conference. If you invite people to your network and they mark your invitation as someone they do not know, you will be banned (temporarily) from inviting new people to your network unless you know their email address.

I would love to hear if  these tips worked for you, questions you may have and any Linkedin related success stories. Please share your thoughts in the comments below.

If you found this article helpful, be sure to follow @BrandLove on Twitter, “Like” BrandLove on Facebook, follow BrandLove on LinkedIn and add BrandLove to your Google+ circles. There are many more tips and tricks on my other social networking sites. Thank you for reading this post and feel free to share it with your friends. Your support is much appreciated!

LinkedIn Feature Update: How To ‘Mention’ People and Companies in Your Status Updates!

LinkedIn has recently announced in a blog post that they are slowly rolling out a new Mentions feature in an effort to cultivate a more engaging experience. Sound familiar? Of course it does because it is very similar to typing in the @ symbol followed by a name on Facebook and having a drop down of friends to choose from and Twitter’s mention feature by using the @ symbol in a tweet.

Using the Mentions feature is a great way to “…start conversations with your network while also enabling you to respond in real-time when someone begins a conversation with you,” according to the LinkedIn blog post. This is also excellent news for sales people and small business owners who utilize LinkedIn for lead generation. Now you can easily start conversations with 1st degree connections by mentioning them instead of just banking on the possibility they’ll see your status update in their sea of network activity.

If you find that you aren’t able to successfully mention someone in an update, you may not have the capability just yet. LinkedIn is still rolling out this feature to English-speaking members first and then bringing it to all global members in the future with the promise of integrating mentions into other parts of the site beyond status updates and home page comments.

How To “Mention” a Company Name or Person in a Status Update or Comment

1. Go to your homepage share box or click comment on someone else’s update.
2. Type “#” and then begin typing a name in the box. You’ll then see a list of potential people or companies you can mention.
3. Click a name you want from the list and continue typing your message.

Note: LinkedIn members outside your network can also be mentioned if they’ve commented on the same update.

After you select someone from the list and finish your update, that person will receive an email and an update letting him or her know you’ve mentioned them. The name will also be linked to a profile or Company Page from your update.

Who sees my update when I mention a connection or company?

When creating an update, select the audience from the Share with field under the share box. For example, you can share with your connections, all LinkedIn members, or all LinkedIn members and your Twitter account (if you’ve set one up).

• Updates containing mentions will be shared just like any other update.
• The member mentioned will receive a notification on linkedin.com and by email.
• The update may be shared with the network of the person being mentioned.

How Do I Remove A Mention?

A mention of your name can be removed by moving your cursor over your name in the update, and then clicking remove. This will remove the link to your profile page and no additional notifications will be received for this update. The person who mentioned you won’t be notified.

How Do I Unsubscribe from Emails About Mentions?

The settings for this email can be changed from the Settings page.

1. Move your cursor over your name at the top of your homepage and select Settings.
2. Click the Communications tab in the bottom left and click Set the frequency of emails.
3. Click Notifications and find the Mentions section.
   • Mentions emails can be set to No Emails to turn them off or to Individual Emails to receive notifications each time you’re mentioned.

A  shout out to Carrie Schochet, Executive Recruiter at the The Overture Group, LLC, for allowing me to use her name and profile as an example for my blog post. Thank you!  The “How To’ section was completed from information in the LinkedIn Help Center.

If you found this article helpful, be sure to follow @BrandLove on Twitter, “Like” BrandLove on Facebook, follow BrandLove on LinkedIn and add BrandLove to your Google+ circles. There are many more tips and tricks on my other social networking sites. Thank you for reading this post and your support is much appreciated!

[Infographic] What Happens in an Internet Minute?

We are all aware that there are billions of people using the internet every day, but what is interesting about this infographic, is which websites are generating huge amounts of traffic. Intel has done a great job of breaking down the information. For example, 640,000 GB of global IP data is transferred every minute.  Not sure what that means? Me either, until I did some research. Most of the traffic is related to photography and movie-sharing services, as Flickr (20 million photo’s viewed), Facebook (6 million Facebook views and 277,000 log ins) and YouTube (1.3 million video views and 30 hours worth of videos are uploaded.)

Additionally, there are 204 million emails sent each minute. Google is recording more than 2 million search queries in 60 seconds. Twitter processes 100,000 new tweets and 320 new Twitter accounts are created. That’s more than five new Twitter users per second. That’s why creating specific lists will help with all the noise in your news feed and you can read the tweets from the people you want. Here’s a previous post to show you how to create a list on Twitter. Sorry, I digress.

Other interesting numbers from Intel’s report reveal that 61,141 hours worth of music are listened on Pandora. My personal favorite social media site, LinkedIn, which generates 100 new accounts in a minute. Unfortunately with the good, comes the bad. Sadly, it appears that 135 botnet infections occur simultaneously with 20 people becoming identity theft victims. Time to invest in some solid anti-virus software if you haven’t already.

Intel expects mobile gadget sales, such as smartphones and tablets, to continue to rise, thus the data transferred in a minute will keep on rising. More than 1,300 new people buy a mobile device each minute, while 47,000 app downloads are being recorded at the same time. Intel says the number of networked devices out there is equal to the world’s population and is expected to double the world’s population by 2015. Crazy. I’m wondering what this means for our future.

For more stats, check out all the amazing things that happen in an internet minute in this informative infographic by Intel.

If you found this article helpful, be sure to follow BrandLove on Twitter, “Like” BrandLove on Facebook and Follow BrandLove on LinkedIn. There are many more tips and tricks on my other social networking sites. Thank you for reading this post and your support is much appreciated!

[Infographic] Social Recruiting with Facebook Graph Search

Facebook is testing a feature called Graph Search that helps you find more people that share your interests.  For example, you can explore new places to eat from friends that have similiar interests, plan a trip, start a book club or find a gym buddy. Connect with friends who like the same activities—and meet new people, too. There is currently a waiting list for Graph Search, but you can sign up to get on this list. This infographic, developed by social employee referral management platform, Zao, takes a look at how to use Graph Search as a tool for social recruiting.

If someone were to ask me what platform would I focus on for social recruitment. I would say LinkedIn without a doubt. What is surprising to me, according to this infographic is that 47% of new hires through social media are referred through Facebook, which puts the social network ahead of LinkedIn and Twitter as a recruitment platform. Facebook is  the second most trafficked website in the world, only trailing Google. No less than 85% of internet users have Facebook accounts and this is why it’s time to start building a Facebook presence for your brand now.

More Facebook Job Hunting Facts

• 1 in 5 of users have had a friend share a job on Facebook
• 84% of job seekers have a Facebook profile
• 14 percent search specifically for jobs on Facebook
• 52 percent use Facebook to help find work

Companies can set up Facebook pages to build a following and post job listings, but almost 50% of users will “unlike” a page if the company posts too many status updates. This is why searching for candidates directly through Graph Search might be a better way to target people who might be interested in a new career.

Take a look at the infographic below to learn more about recruiting on Facebook. Do you have a social media recruiting success story? Do you think it as effective as traditional recruiting? Let us know in the comments.

If you found this article helpful, be sure to follow BrandLove on Twitter, “Like” BrandLove on Facebook and Follow BrandLove on LinkedIn. There are many more tips and tricks on my other social networking sites. Thank you for reading this post and your support is much appreciated! 

Are Your Facebook Cover Images and Ads Violating Facebook’s 20% Text Rule?

Facebook recently has made some changes to the guidelines of cover photo’s, page post ads and sponsored stories in the news feed. Basically, you can’t promote images with more than 20% text in them. How do you know if you’re violating Facebook’s guidelines? In my opinion, it’s hard to tell unless you are a graphic designer and have the natural ability to eyeball the graphics. I found a handy tool that will help you quickly determine if you’re in violation. Facebook will also be releasing a tool to help quickly determine whether your image satisfies the 20% limit. In the meantime, check out the Promotheus app.

With this tool, you can check the “20% of text” compliance of your cover image, promoted page or page post and sponsored stories. As stated in Facebook Advertising Guidelines: ” Cover Photo’s, Ads and sponsored stories in News Feed may not include images comprised of more than 20% text.” Though the guideline says that the restriction relates only to News Feed, we suggest you check your ad images appearing in the sidebar. These ads may appear as sponsored in the News Feed and that might be a problem. This new policy replaces previous policies around calls to action, price or purchase information, etc. It only applies to cover images, feed eligible Page post ads and sponsored stories (including links, offers, and mobile app install units) – it does not apply to market place ads. Additionally, brands can still post images with more than 20% text on their timelines; they just can’t promote them with paid media.

Here’s how to check your images:

1. Type in your Facebook business page URL  or Upload an image.

2. Click ‘Get Image’ or ‘Upload Image.’

3. Next, click on the area (rectangles) where you have text. The Promotheus app will let you know what percentage of your graphic has text. If you’re 20% or less, you’re all set.

More Cover Photo Guidelines

Just in case you didn’t know, cover photos may not contain the following information:

• Promotion, price or purchase information. You need an app for that. For example, “40% off,” “Download it at our website,” or “Free cover page design all month.”
• Contact information. For example, your web address, email, mailing address or other information intended for your Page’s About section.
• References to user interface elements. For example, Like and Share or an arrow pointing from the cover photo to any of these features.
• Calls to action. For example, “Get it now” or “Tell your friends.”

If you found this article helpful, be sure to follow me on Twitter, “Like” me on Facebook and follow BrandLove, LLC on LinkedIn. I post many more tips and tricks on my other social channels. Thanks for reading my post and I appreciate your support!

 

[Infographic] How Users Interact on Pinterest

If a picture is worth a thousand words, then Pinterest is the biggest dictionary. As of recent, Pinterest hit 10 million U.S. monthly unique visitors faster than any independent site in history. An increase of 2,702.2%! It has experienced exponential growth since bursting on the social media scene in 2011 and had the largest year-over-year increase in social desktop usage, social web usage and social app usage.

And how do users spend time on Pinterest?  They spend most of their time pinning pictures on their boards, 83.9%, followed by liking other pins (15.5%). The engagement on Pinterest is not that strong, only 0.6% of users comment on pins. Moreover, 80% of the content shared on Pinterest are re-pins of pictures from other users. In terms of gender, females still dominate Pinterest’s usage, making up the overwhelming majority of the audience – more than 80%. It has been proven that more women than men spend money online. A large portion of women even buy all their clothes on the Internet. In fact, Pinterest pins with prices get 36% more likes than those without.

If you’re looking for interaction and traffic, then Pinterest is not such a bad option to pursue. The site has a strong community and is steaming with activity. You can easily strike up a following if you’re active. This infographic will give you some detail on how users are interacting with pins, boards, other users and brands on Pinterest in order to grow your following on this social networking site.

As a side note, over 1/5 of Facebook-connected users are on Pinterest daily, which represents more than 2 million members. (source: AppData) If you have a Pinterest business page, you can add a Pinterest app to your Facebook business page for free. Check out Woobox, the #1 provider of page apps for Facebook.  It’s a free tool and the process is simple to connect the two accounts. Also, if you do have a Pinterest business page, feel free to leave your page URL in the comments section. I’ll be sure to check out all the pages. Virtual networking is another great way to build your followers and increase the awareness of your brand.

If you found this article helpful, be sure to follow me on Twitter, “Like” me on Facebook and follow BrandLove, LLC on LinkedIn. I post many more tips and tricks on my other social channels. Thanks for reading my post and I appreciate your support!

[Infographic] Facebook ‘Best Days to Post’ Segmented by Industry

What is the best time to share content on Facebook for maximum exposure?  Should you post first thing in the morning?  During lunch?  At the end of the workday when people are getting ready to head home? Determining when to post  to get the most engagement is one of the greatest challenges of Facebook page admins. Who’s to say that a post targeted at the retail industry wouldn’t do better on the weekends while a post targeted towards technology fans wouldn’t do better during the work week? Not all Facebook posts are targeted at the same people, so you have to be careful of “general research” about Facebook or any other social media trend. It may not apply to your industry or audience. That’s why this infographic from LinchpinSEO is helpful. The data for this infographic analyzed the user engagement of more than 1,800 Facebook pages from the world’s top brands for the first two months following the implementation to Timeline. The data was collected from April 1 to May 31, 2012 and is organized by industry. For instance, companies considered “general retail” will find more engagement on Mondays (19% above average), whereas nonprofits will see greater success on weekends (14% higher interaction on Saturdays and Sundays.) 

Check out the infographic below and let me know what you think in the comments below.  Do you think you’ll start paying more attention to the timing of your social networking as a result of these findings?

On a side note, if you’re not sure how your Facebook page is performing and you’re looking to get your  feet wet in the world of marketing, I wrote a post awhile back about PageLever, who launched an app called Minilytics. Minilytics is a FREE app for marketers looking for quick answers to the basic marketing questions of your Facebook pages. This basic analytic’s tool is a great way to get answers specific to YOUR Facebook pages: your best time to post, the number of fans your posts reach, the most popular kind of content to post for your fans and an analysis of the demographics of your fan base. You can get more information on this tool here.

If you found this article helpful, be sure to follow me on Twitter, “Like” me on Facebook and follow BrandLove, LLC on LinkedIn. I post many more tips and tricks on my other social channels. Thanks for reading my post and I appreciate your support!

[Infographic] The LinkedIn Profile–Insight Into the Users of the Professional Networking Powerhouse

Are you surprised that 61% of 500 Americans surveyed by Lab42 chose LinkedIn for professional networking over Facebook at 22%? Probably not. What is surprising to me is that 35% of users check-in daily and 42% update their profile regularly. Only 6% check-in less than once a month. It wasn’t that long ago that professional networking meant printing off your resume, attending job fairs and scheduling coffee dates with old co-workers or friends of friends who could help you land your next dream job. This is not the case anymore. As of January 9, LinkedIn boasts over 200 million members with representation in more than 200 countries and territories. 74 million coming from the United States. Wow.

Check out this infographic by Lab42 to see how these 500 Americans surveyed utilized their profile and to see if they valued LinkedIn as a professional networking too.

If you found this article helpful, be sure to follow me on Twitter, “Like” me on Facebook, follow me on Pinterest, and follow BrandLove, LLC on LinkedIn. I post many more tips and tricks on my other social channels. Thanks for reading my post and I appreciate your support!

New LinkedIn Feature: Add Groups to Company Pages and a How To

A LinkedIn Company Page allows you to learn more about a company you are interested in.  For a business, it’s the opportunity to tell your company’s story, highlight your products and services, share articles, press coverage, career opportunities and drive word of mouth at scale. For millions of professionals, a Company Page is a place to explore companies of interest, get the latest company updates and industry news, research products & services and learn about job opportunities. Any LinkedIn member can follow a company that has set up a Company Page to get updates on key developments.

If your company doesn’t have a LinkedIn Company Page yet and wants to set up a page, first check out the requirements to add a Company Page and read the basics on how to add a Company Page. (You can also contact me for help!) For more detailed information, download LinkedIn’s Guide to your Company Page.

Why Add Featured Groups to Your Company’s Page?

• Gives you the opportunity to showcase staffing organizations or associations’ groups you are a part of or manage.  If you are affiliated with a particular organization, it may build credibility if a potential prospect or candidate sees you display it on your page.
• Highlight a particular specialty your firm has. If you are participating in an industry-specific group (such as Social Media Marketing), it can help draw attention to your expertise in this area.
• A great way to highlight community ties. If your firm prides itself on its community ties and you participate in a specific group for your community, consider adding it as a Featured Group.

Here’s How To Add a Featured Group:

First of all, to add a group to your Company Page, you must be both the Company Page administrator and a member of the group you want to add. You can add up to 3 groups per Company Page.

1. Go to your Company Page.

2. Click Edit at the top of the Home tab.

4. Scroll down to the Featured Groups section.

5. Start typing the name of the group you’d like to add (Please note that your groups will appear in the order in which they are listed while you’re in the edit mode.)

6. Click ‘Publish’ in the top right corner after you add your group (s). Once you have added Featured Groups to your page, it will add the list to your right sidebar in the bottom for visitors to see.

If you found this article helpful, be sure to follow me on Twitter, “Like” me on Facebook, follow me on Pinterest, and follow BrandLove, LLC on LinkedIn. I post many more tips and tricks on my other social channels. Thanks for reading my post and I appreciate your support!

[Infographic] The New Face of SEO: How SEO Has Changed

The following infographic from Fuzz One has hit the nail on the head on the latest SEO best practices. It details both the OLD vs. NEW approaches to SEO and has outlined today’s SEO in a clear visual representation. To me, SEO is confusing and I actually understood what they are saying without having to reread it a dozen times, however, if you’re scratching your head and wondering what the heck SEO is, I’m including a definition so hopefully the infographic will make more sense.

WHAT IS SEO?

SEO, the acronym stands for Search Engine Optimization. It is the process of getting traffic from the “free,” “organic or unpaid,” “editorial” or “natural” listings on search engines. All major search engines such as Google, Yahoo and Bing have such results, where web pages and other content such as videos or local listings are shown and ranked based on what the search engine considers most relevant to users. As a digital marketing strategy, SEO considers how search engines work, what people search for, the actual search terms or keywords typed into search engines and which search engines are preferred by their targeted audience. Optimizing a website may involve editing its content, HTML and associated coding to both increase its relevance to specific keywords and to remove barriers to the indexing activities of search engines. Promoting a site to increase the number of backlinks, or inbound links, is another SEO tactic. Hopefully, that helps. Ever onward.

Like everything in the world of digital marketing, it changes within a blink of an eye and so has SEO. It is verging more and more towards a creative and marketing mindset that touches the nerves of humans OR an audience that search engines are getting better at understanding. SEOs are starting to think about their audience first with engaging content before optimization for search engines. The infographic should hopefully shed better light as to where SEO is headed and give you an idea on how to align your digital marketing activities with these changes. Check it out.

If you found this article helpful, be sure to follow me on Twitter, “Like” me on Facebook, follow me on Pinterest, and follow BrandLove, LLC on LinkedIn. I post many more tips and tricks on my other social channels. Thanks for reading my post and I appreciate your support!