Читать книгу Windmill Networking: Understanding, Leveraging & Maximizing LinkedIn - Neal Schaffer - Страница 13

Once you have established your objective for using LinkedIn, and ideally have started thinking about your own unique and differentiating brand, you can begin to create your User Profile. Doing so will help you define and create your own LinkedIn Brand. At this point I assume you are already on LinkedIn, but if not, please visit www.linkedin.com and join.

Your profile is the heart of your personal information that will be exposed to other LinkedIn members. Your profile is, in essence, a resume that you are sharing with the entire world. Although the best way to create a resume is to customize it for each position you are seeking, there is only one universal profile on LinkedIn that everyone will be able to see. This is the secret to why LinkedIn’s database and search capabilities are so awesome: the fields for which everyone enters information are standardized.

For the same reason, it is easier to brand yourself, as everyone else has to complete the same data fields as you. By doing something different you will undoubtedly make yourself more noticeable.

How much information you put in your profile really depends on your LinkedIn Objective. If you want to Windmill Network or are currently in transition, the more information, the better. If you are happily employed and simply want to reconnect with old friends and colleagues, you may not want to go into as much detail. If you want to be successful in achieving your objective, there is a minimum of work history and schools attended that you will need to enter in order to search for and be found by former acquaintances. To develop and strengthen your own LinkedIn Brand, the more data you enter to back it up, the stronger your brand will be.

Don’t be shy here. Yes, this will be a publicly accessible resume for you or your product. But if you don’t put enough information on your profile, you simply will not be found in competition with 40 million other profiles. I used to think you should not have too much in your profile, as it is best not to reveal more than you need to. The thought process behind this? The more you reveal, the higher the chance that certain aspects of your profile may not be agreeable for whatever reason. I still feel this way to some extent. But the fact of the matter is, if you don’t have enough information in your profile, you might as well not even be on LinkedIn. If you are not branding yourself enough, you are not taking full advantage of what LinkedIn can offer.

With that in mind, let’s examine each part that makes up your User Profile for additional advice on how much you really need to include. If you have already filled out an initial profile, simply go to the “Edit My Profile” tab under the “Profile” section to make any adjustments. You can see how others view your profile by selecting “View My Profile” under the “Profile” selection on the left-hand menu bar.

One last note: LinkedIn conveniently will display your “degree of profile completeness” in terms of a percentage as you add to your profile. If you enter all of the information that I suggest, you should earn a relatively high score. You will probably not reach 100%, as you may be asked to recommend three people. Regardless, do not sweat the details, as you should hit 100% if you heed both my and LinkedIn’s advice.

“Basic Information”

This is the information that will first appear with your name. It is the bare minimum necessary to start making connections on LinkedIn.

Your Name

LinkedIn is strict when asking you to include your name, and only your name, where they specify. Do not put a company name or add something to the end of your name to advertise something; there are plenty of other places where you can do this. You will see many people who continue to do this, but here’s the scoop: should you need to contact LinkedIn Customer Service for something, they will not help you if you do not show your proper name. You do have the option to show only the first initial of your last name, but unless you have something to hide, you should join the other 99% of members who list their name in its entirety. Finally, if you are a business and plan to put a business name as your name, don’t join LinkedIn. LinkedIn is a social network for professionals and people, not companies. You’ll have plenty of opportunities to brand your company within your profile!

Headline

You will definitely want to customize your headline to align with your LinkedIn Objective, as this headline appears next to your name within search results. In fact, your Headline should include your key branding statement. It is the area, next to your name, that will get the most visibility, so think carefully as to how you want to brand yourself here. You can add more information about your profession and indicate your objective for being on LinkedIn. Enter searchable keywords to increase your visibility. Remember, you are limited to 120 characters, which makes customizing this section very challenging! LinkedIn does include some examples which should give you some specific ideas. Another idea: Search for someone who may have a similar objective or professional background to see what their headline displays to help you brainstorm ideas.

Country/Zip Code

There is no need to deceive anyone here. In order to be correctly found, it is in your best interest to enter your actual country and zip code. Worried about privacy? So is LinkedIn! The actual city name of where you live, based on your zip code, is not displayed—only your closest major metropolitan area appears. So no privacy worries here. The zip code you enter is merely used in searches when trying to locate someone x number of miles away from your address.

Industry

This is a tricky one—you are being asked to compartmentalize yourself into a silo called an “industry.” Many of us have worked in multiple industries, or for whatever reason, don’t want to be associated with the industry in which we currently work. There are also many companies where the industry is not clear. I looked at several profiles of employees from my previous company; interestingly enough, people’s choices regarding the industry they selected varied. Whichever industry you choose, it is very important to pick one that you want to be associated with, as this will be a key field upon which searches will be based. On the other hand, if your objective is to move into a new industry, why not select that industry for your profile? Once again, it all comes down to your objective. Even if your brand is not necessarily tied to a particular industry, pick the one with which you want to be associated.

Your Photo

It is highly recommended that you post a photo to your profile. It will add a personal touch to your profile and will encourage people to reach out to you because you will literally be seen as a “real” entity. There is a debate, since LinkedIn is a site for professionals, about what type of photo you should post. One thing for sure is that you don’t want to post a potentially embarrassing Facebook type of photo. I have seen some people post the types of photos you would see on corporate website bios as well as the more personal types of photos that may also include pictures with children. This is really a personal choice; it comes down to how you want to portray yourself to the outside world according to your own LinkedIn Objective. Selecting a photo plays an important role in how people will ultimately visualize your brand.

The “What Are You Working On Now?” Bar

I don’t know what the official name of this bar is, but it appears just below your city/industry. I will often refer to this as the “Status Update” text box. If you are familiar with Twitter, it follows the same concept; it broadcasts what you are currently “working on” to the world. You can decide, in the Accounts & Settings section, to who you want to display this information on your profile and whether or not you want to “broadcast” it to the LinkedIn Home Page of your connections. This bar also plays an important role in achieving your objective. Looking for a job? Trying to find a candidate? Looking for help or for particular information? Or do you prefer to just say something to the world? Broadcast it—people are watching! Just make sure you are not broadcasting things that would be more appropriate for your Facebook friends. LinkedIn, after all, is a site for professionals. There is a section in Chapter 10 (Customizing Your LinkedIn Experience), which is devoted solely to what you should enter here; at this point, there is no need to enter anything here. LinkedIn is critical real estate upon which you can differentiate yourself and thus strengthen your brand in. Broadcast wisely!

“Profile Synopsis”

This is the resume section of your LinkedIn profile, where the more you contribute, the more likely you will be able to find and be found. The reason being that for each company or school that you enter in your profile, you will enable both present and ex-colleagues and classmates to find you. Keep this in mind when deciding which work experience and schools you want to include in your profile. The details you enter here will be displayed further below in your profile, but the synopsis of titles, companies, and schools will all be collected from the profile information that you input.

Current (Position)

As you start adding your work experience, your Current Position is the position that will appear at the very top of your work profile. This “Current” position will also appear within the expanded search results, so be sure you put your present or most recent position details here. What you enter here will be the same as what you will input for every other work position that you choose to enter into LinkedIn. LinkedIn will help you narrow down your company name, using an assisted search functionality to draw from the member profiles that contain the same company’s name. If it is the first time entering that company name (like for a sole proprietorship) you will have the option to enter the company’s URL as well as the industry. You will then need to put in your title, dates worked, as well as a description of the position. Since your description will be seen by potential recruiters, don’t be shy when listing your achievements, especially if you are currently unemployed. To effectively brand yourself, you will need to include the details that support the information in your Profile Headline. I recommend including resume-like content, but leave the full details for your resume. Include enough detail to entice someone to contact you. If you are employed, you will probably want to be a bit more diplomatic about what you enter in the description so it doesn’t appear that you are looking for a job. Note that the most recent position that you enter here will only appear if you check the “I currently work here” option. If you are unemployed and you already updated your most recent position with the final date of employment, this section will have nothing displayed.

Past (Positions)

LinkedIn gives you the option to add more positions here. I have seen people list more than ten positions, so there may not even be a limit as to how many you can add. I recommend that you list as many positions as you are comfortable with; at minimum, list the same positions included on your resume. Guidelines regarding what to enter here are the same as for the “Current Position” listed above.

Education

Just as you enter your professional experience as if it were your resume, you can also enter your educational background. Most people stop at their university or masters/PHD program. This is a shame. If LinkedIn is about finding and being found, it makes sense to also list your high school as well as any other foreign institutions you may have attended during your college years. The process for completing your education profile is to enter the country and state (if applicable). A drop down of potential colleges and universities will appear. If your college is not listed here, or you want to enter your high school, you simply choose “Other” and then manually enter the name. There are also fields to enter your degree, field(s) of study, dates attended, activities and societies, and extra notes. I believe for most professionals there may not be a need to enter activities and societies as well as additional notes, but if you are one of the growing numbers of college students utilizing LinkedIn, you will definitely want to use this space to brand yourself with these details.

Connections

This will show an accumulated tally of the total number of connections you have acquired. If you have not yet sent or accepted any invitations, it should display “0 connections.” Note that the maximum number of connections that will be displayed is 500 connections, and anything above that will show up as “500+ connections.”

Websites

You have the opportunity to list three websites to appear in your profile. They could be your personal website (if you have one), your blog, your company website, or even your profile on other social networking sites such as Facebook or MySpace. It all comes down to what you want to advertise here, which depends on your objective, and on how you want to brand yourself. Note that you can also customize the text label description of each URL site that you enter. You should take advantage of this and use it as part of making your profile more search engine optimized.

Public Profile

This will be the default URL, which is automatically assigned to you, that will lead non-LinkedIn members to your profile. Do yourself a favor: edit this and claim your personalized URL now. If you are the first one to claim your name, your public profile URL will be easy to remember— www.linkedin.com/in/your name. You can then include this as part of your email signature or business card (if you are in transition) to drive more traffic to your profile. Since LinkedIn is a site for professionals, I do not recommend that you include a URL name that is different from your real name, i.e. branding your URL. It could sound tacky and take away from your brand.

“Your Summary”

This is your chance to tell the world who you are. It is the most brandable part of your profile, as you are given the largest amount of text area. You could attach your bio from your corporate website if you are an executive, or if you are looking for a job, this could be a synopsis of the highlights of your resume. Your Professional Headline acts as an initial filter when someone views your profile; your Summary is the basis upon which people will form opinions about you and your brand. The content you include here will be intrinsically tied to what you want to accomplish with LinkedIn and your LinkedIn Brand.

Notice that there is also a “Specialties” section that appears at the bottom of the Summary. My advice here is to fill this space with keywords you want associated with your profile. I have personally broken up these keywords into industry-specific and skill-specific paragraphs.

Remember the rule of thumb for data entry here: if there is a keyword that you want to be associated with when it is searched upon, make sure you have included it in your Summary, as this is the most suitable place for it.

Applications

If you have any Applications running, they will appear here below your “Summary” section and above your “Experience” section. Chapter 8 is devoted entirely to all of the Applications that exist on LinkedIn, so if you have not installed any Applications yet, please wait until after we cover these later in this book. So as not to overload you with too much at this point, I’m going to skip over Applications now. Applications are icing on the cake and are not mandatory to brand yourself on LinkedIn, but, depending on your objective, they could be very valuable tools.

Experience

All of the positions you entered under work experience will appear here in descending time order, with your most recent or “current” job listed first. At the bottom of each section, your Recommendations, if you have any, will appear.

Education

Just as all of the work experience details will be listed in the “Experience” section, all of the schools that you attended, together with their details, will be listed here in the “Education” section.

Recommendations

Chapter 5 of this book is solely devoted to Recommendations. If you have received any and decide to display them, they will be shown in full detail, including the name and title of those who recommended you. They will be displayed in the same order that your Experience is shown.

“Additional Information”

There is a host of other information that is displayed at the bottom of your profile. While this section may look dismissible, every inch of space you have in your profile should be utilized to mention anything the standard template does not allow you to communicate. All of these areas are searchable. Once you get more familiar with LinkedIn you will find a lot of people put a lot of different things in these sections. There is no golden rule except that you want to make sure that 1) you are found when searched upon and 2) your profile showcases your brand!

Websites

The same three websites that appear in your “Profile Synopsis” will be displayed here as well. Not clear as to what LinkedIn’s intent is in having the same information display twice, but this gives your URLs double the marketing power!

Interests

Objectively speaking, you could put your actual interests in this section. If letting everyone know that you enjoy rock climbing will help you achieve your objective, then go for it. Just be careful not to dilute your LinkedIn Brand. But if you are using LinkedIn for a professional objective, why not put interests here that are related to your job? Maybe you can go into some detail as to why you are interested in some aspects of your career. I cannot tell you to put anything under “Interests” that is not objectively related to your interests, but the choice is yours. You will see many profiles where people are putting completely unrelated things here to better advertise themselves and to make sure that search engines pick them up. In my own experience, I have not heard of anyone being notified by LinkedIn that they need to change their wording here to be more aligned with actual interests. What you enter here is at your own risk, but be forewarned that if you go off the topic of actual Interests you may be at risk of violating the LinkedIn User’s Agreement. Make sure you check it (the link is on the bottom navigation bar) before doing something that may not be viewed by LinkedIn in a positive light.

Groups and Associations

This section is slightly different than the “Interests” section in that any LinkedIn Group you join will be listed here if you choose to display their logos. When viewing your own profile, all of your Groups will appear on the right-hand side as LinkedIn will understand that those are shared Groups. We will discuss LinkedIn Groups in Chapter 6, but if there is a professional association that you are a member of that does not have a corresponding LinkedIn Group, you absolutely should make sure to include it here.

Honors and Awards

Same as “Interests.” I have seen people brag about career achievements and awards here, but I personally think this is the type of material that should really be in the relevant section as part of your “Experience.” Include any information that you want at your own risk.

Personal Information

This is a relatively new feature that allows you to input your phone number, address, IM username, birthday, and marital status to your profile. I personally have a problem with this and find it interesting that where LinkedIn is concerned about your privacy, they are asking for some very private information from a professional demographic. I really don’t see any advantage to filling out this area at all, unless LinkedIn rolls out some unique feature (other than targeted advertising, which I presume this information is used for) that uses it to your advantage.

Contact Settings

There are two sections here, with the top section being text that you can directly enter, and the bottom section showing what you are “Interested In.” This information is culled from what you entered when asked how you would like to use your network. This information can be edited in the “Using Your Network” section in “Account & Settings,” located at the top right-hand side of the screen. It is important to check all of the boxes next to the options so you are seen as open to anyone who may want to contact you.

I believe that the “Contact Settings,” as opposed to the “Additional Information” section, is the area where you can and should share your LinkedIn Objective and guidelines for being contacted. If you are currently employed but looking for work, you don’t want to mention that here. But if you are open to being contacted by certain types of people, or you actively want to create certain types of relationships, why not say so here? If you want to keep your network closed and don’t want to receive invitations from virtual networkers, this is the place to say so.

If you believe in Windmill Networking, this is where you should tell the world you are a Windmill Networker and are looking to connect with similar-minded people.

One note is that you will often see email addresses and phone numbers included here as well as in other sections on LinkedIn. It is LinkedIn’s policy that these should not be included in your profile; doing so may be violating the LinkedIn User’s Agreement. I was afraid of what type of spam might come my way should I enter my own email address. But, since I was in transition, I thought if a recruiter wanted to contact me and another candidate, and the other candidate was easily accessible (had his or her email and or phone details in their profile), the recruiter would probably contact the candidate who supplied his or her contact information. So I listed my email address in potential violation of the User Agreement. They have yet to strictly enforce this, but if they do contact me, I will gladly remove it from my profile.

I was even more hesitant to include my phone number but I have since changed my mind. One day, after I joined a certain LinkedIn Group, I received a call on my cell phone the very next day from someone trying to sell me a service related to that Group. I was shocked that someone who didn’t know me had found out my cell number, and when I asked, he simply replied that he had called the company listed as my current employer and asked for me ;-) The point is this: Anyone who wants to contact me will find a way to do so, so why not list my phone number on my profile so people who I may think are important have a way to directly contact me? In reality, since I have listed it, I have received very few calls. But it is out there as a representation that I am always open to talking to anyone, including you, the reader of this book!