Profile Builder GuideHow to distinguish yourself and build your professional brand

Colleen McKenna | Intero Advisorycolleen@interoadvisory.comLinkedin: http://www.linkedin.com/in/colleenmckennaMobile 410.458.6960

LinkedIn –Best Practices for Building A Profile That Builds Your Professional Brand.

This LinkedIn Profile Builder is a tool to get you going whether that means creating an account or becoming a more advanced member and user. Jot notes or write it all in this template rather than just filling it spontaneously in LinkedIn. LinkedIn is changing almost daily. New functionality, views and apps are expanding LinkedIn’s footprint so getting comfortable with the LinkedIn landscape will allow you to sail right over the changes and benefit from them rather than being frustrated by the fact they are one more thing to learn.

LinkedIn now has 135+ million+ members, and so, before creating your profile, I suggest you think about how you will you use it.

What do you hope to take away from the training session?

What are your top objectives for using LinkedIn? Or what will they be?

Will you commit to checking it daily? Over 77% of members do.Weekly?

Strategy, yes, it can be become a key component of your personal and professional brand and marketing.Do you want to be openly accessible or more selective? Remember, the foundation of all social media and networking platforms is to be transparent and open.

Do you want your network open for other connections to see or do you prefer to keep it closed? [This is a key strategic consideration, can be changed in the settings area].

Do you want to create a static or dynamic profile and voice on LinkedIn? This comes down to how often you engage within LinkedIn and the extent to which you participate.

Is your company active with a company profile, are you connected to it?

Will you search for prospects and customers?

Will you join and participate in groups?

Will you add apps to customize and round out your profile? Look under the More tab for the current list of apps.

Will you recommend colleagues, clients, vendors etc?

Will you ask for referrals, recommendations and introductions?

Ok, so let’s get started.

Create an account: www.linkedin.com

Join, skip steps 2 and 5 where it asks who you know, you will go back to that later.

Jot down your username and password:Username ___________________Password ___________________

Confirm the account

If you have a current profile, how many connections do you have: _______

SettingsCreate the settings you are comfortable with before building your profile. Go to the upper right hand corner of the page, it is the arrow next to your name.

Before you begin to build your profile in LinkedIn, use this document to lay it out and consider what you want to say.

How do you get to a profile that is 100%? LinkedIn ranks the components differently below. Use this to guide and encourage you as you build your profile.

Before you begin to build your profile in LinkedIn, use this document to lay it out and consider what you want to say

Suggestions

Upload your resume right into the profile and then tweak from there.

Use keywords to optimize your page. Write these words down, see list below.

You also want to think about longtail key words, three to five word phrases that reflect how people search online. These keywords and phrases need to be strategically placed within your profile to help optimize your rankings.

Your Keywords for Individual Profile

What keywords best represent who you are and what you do. List them below:

Summary Area

Your summary is your personal experience synopsis.

I suggest a mention, the value proposition or corporate statement about your company and then go into your personal summary. Why? I want to create a corporate marketing touch as well; if someone is reviewing several members of an organization it looks more polished when they are speaking the same language about their organization.

Specialties

Add your specialties, once again; they should mirror versions of your keywords.

Personal Summary

Skills [go to MORE at the top and click on Skills]

Key in your skills and notice what

Skills

appears, check out the left navigation bar and see other skills related to the one you just keyed in.

Add between 6-12 key skills that mirror your keywords

Experience

Add all your relevant experience; the more you add the more LinkedIn suggests people you might know.

Experience Cont’d

Experience

Volunteer and Cause Experience

Include your volunteer experience, the causes you support and become an advocate for those

organizations.

Education

Recommendations

Ask managers, clients,colleagues for a specific, business recommendation.

Don’t forget…recommend others as well.

Other Sections

Certifications

Courses

Honors and Awards

Languages

Organizations

Projects

Patents

Test Scores

Volunteer Experience & Causes

These are especially helpful for students and emerging young professionals create a stronger profile.

You will find these under “Edit Profile” below Summary.

Groups

Go to the directory and look for groups that you may be interested in joining.

You can join up to 50

Applications

Go To MORE at the top and at the bottom you will see“Get More Applications”

Now that you’ve started, don’t forget to engage and post Status Updates, invite people you know, introduce people and connect the dots.