Business? Let’s Go Personal First
I’m a social media consultant and I help entrepreneurs and small businesses create social media plans that bring in profits.
It’s nice to have followers but when it comes down to it, does it grow your business in the right direction? When I speak to groups or work with clients I tell them to take a step back and to look at their personal brand a bit before diving back into their business.I believe if you can elevate your personal brand it naturally raises your business brand as well.
That’s what led me to LinkedIn. It’s a great way to establish your personal brand as you get started in business.
These days we want to know more about the people we’re doing business with. Buying a car or a home is a great example.If a salesperson has tons of awards, testimonials, and a positive outlook, how much more likely are you going to be to work with them?
We want to feel confident about the people we’re working with and LinkedIn is the place to find out this information.
Social media is where you can be proactive in what you’re putting out there into the marketplace, so take advantage of it. You want to make it as easy as possible for a prospect to say “yes” to working with you.
Every other successful LinkedIn strategy is that much more successful when your personal brand is rock solid.
When you look at someone’s profile the first thing you look at is their photo and their headline.
A lot of people just put their job title as a headline like “Attorney” or “Accountant.” There’s so much more you can be doing here.
I tell my clients to think about their customers when writing profile headlines. No one cares that you’re a CEO, they care about what you can do for them.
You want your headline to confidently tell the world what you do.
If you’re active on LinkedIn it’s going to rank highly when you search your own name. That’s what you want since you’re making a significant investment in time spent on the platform.
In your headline, if you don’t feel a little queasy when you hit submit then you’re not being confident enough. No one has ever said, “this person seems too confident, I’m not going to work with them.”
In my headline I say I’m a “successful social media strategist.”
No one is going to hire me if I say I’m an “alright LinkedIn consultant.”
No, you need to be confident if you want to excite others! You want to also include who you help and how you help them. The more specified you can get in this section the better.
Google also reads your headline so it pays to add relevant keywords into this section.
LinkedIn also acts as it’s own search engine so it’s doubly valuable. I add in extra characters like asterisks or parenthesis to make my headline stand out in a crowd of 50 or 100.
People are looking for you, but if you’re not ready to be found then they’re going to keep on looking!
Action Steps
- Write down your top keywords or what keyword you want to be the number one ranking for.
- Craft your LinkedIn headline that explains what you do and who you do it for. Be confident in what you write!
- Use your top keywords in this section so you can rank on Google.
- Add extra characters to your headline to stand out from the pack.
Result You Will Achieve
A LinkedIn profile headline that ranks you highly on Google and within LinkedIn.
This article is based on an EHQ interview with the mentor.