The ultimate guide_to_the_perfect_linkedin_profile

The Ultimate Guide to the Perfect LinkedIn Profile 1
The Ultimate Guide
to the
Perfect LinkedIn Profile
Optimize Your Profile For Success
By Mike Allton

Copyright © 2015 by The Social Media Hat
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof
may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever
without the express written permission of the publisher
except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
“LinkedIn” is a trademark of LinkedIn Corporation. This publication includes trademarks
and other intellectual property of LinkedIn Corporation, in respect of which LinkedIn
Corporation reserves all rights. LinkedIn Corporation is not associated or affiliated with
this publication nor has LinkedIn Corporation endorsed the publication or its content.
Printed in the United States of America
First Printing, 2015
The Social Media Hat
St. Louis, MO 63301
www.TheSocialMediaHat.com

For Emmaline

Special Introduction
In April of 2014, it occurred to me that I been making quite a few
modifications and customizations to my LinkedIn profile. I’d been using
LinkedIn since August 14, 2007, and throughout that time I’d been using
LinkedIn less and less for job seeking, and more and more for connecting
with peers, colleagues and potential prospects for my business services.
Which meant that the way I was using LinkedIn was somewhat contrary to
how the standard LinkedIn profile is designed.
You see, normally, one of the most important aspects of your LinkedIn profile
is your Experience and your Education. That’s because potential employees
are very interested in where you’ve worked and where you went to school.
But I realized that most of my connections weren’t interested in where I went
to school. They were interested in what I could do for them, what problems I
could solve, and I needed my profile to do a better job communicating that.
So I began to take note of the various changes and updates and
customizations I’d been making, like rearranging my LinkedIn profile sections
to better highlight my skills and expertize, and deemphasize things like
where I went to school. And as I went through all of these changes, the list
grew rather extensive. I think I had over a dozen recommendations when I
got the point of being ready to start writing.
The initial article ended up at around 4500 words with the original 19
recommendations as seen in the infographic I created to complement the
post. Since then I’ve added a few more sections, begun to compile tips from
LinkedIn experts I trust, and have spent time improving the overall style,
formatting and readability of the article. The result is a resource that’s been
met with incredible feedback and interest. I hope you get good use out of this
expanded digital format.
Mike Allton, Feb. 2015

The Ultimate Guide to the Perfect LinkedIn Profile
Because LinkedIn began as a platform for connecting employers with
employees, essentially an online resume service, our LinkedIn profiles are
far more complicated and advanced than the other social networks. This is
no 140 character Bio like on Twitter. You've got sections for a Summary and
Experience and Education and more.
And I have to be honest here, setting up and optimizing a LinkedIn
profile takes time. This is not going to be a "Clean Up Your LinkedIn Profile
In 5 Minutes" kind of post. So while it will only take a few minutes for you and
I to run through these suggestions, be prepared to spend a considerably
greater amount of time actually implementing some of them. Fortunately,
once done, you can relax, have a glass of wine, and just pop back into your
profile every few weeks or months to make a couple updates.
Before we jump into these recommendations, let me make one more point
perfectly clear. These are not necessarily recommendations for the perfect
LinkedIn profile if you're looking for a job. I am writing this from my own
perspective, as someone who is using their LinkedIn profile to connect with
influencers, partners or prospects. I already have a business and I
am counting on LinkedIn to help me grow that business and reach more of
their nearly 200 million active monthly users.
All of the recommendations below are just that, recommendations. Take 'em
or leave 'em however you'd like. Each can be implemented by going to
LinkedIn, logging in, moving your mouse over to Profile in the top menu and
then clicking on the Edit Profile link. This will put your profile in edit mode,
and you'll be able to change anything you need to. You may also want to
take advantage of LinkedIn's suggestions and recommendations for
completing your profile. LinkedIn will ask you a series of probing questions
designed to get your profile even more complete, starting with a couple of
recommendations displayed below your profile image.

To edit, simply mouse over elements of your profile and click on the pencil
icon that appears to the right of each section to edit it. Edits will be saved as
soon as you click out of each profile field. Your profile essentially is always
in edit mode.
Note that the LinkedIn for iOS app supports making edits to your profile,
while the LinkedIn for iPad app does not. If you want to make changes to
your LinkedIn profile while using your iPad, you'll need to log into LinkedIn
using either Safari or Chrome on your iPad. You can then edit the various
fields, though i would still recommend doing so from desktop. It's faster,
easier, and you can't upload images from your iPad if needed. Throughout
the rest of this guide, I will assume you're editing your profile via desktop.

We will cover:
1. Why Use LinkedIn At All?
2. Research Keywords for LinkedIn
3. Use a Current, Professional Profile Image
4. Consider Premium, and Then Add a Cover Photo
5. What's Your Name, and What Do You Do?
6. Offer Complete Contact Information
7. Grab a Custom URL
8. Make Sure Your Profile Is Visible
9. Consider a Profile Badge
10. Support Additional Languages
11. Update Your Connections
12. Update Your Background
13. Add Media / Links
14. Review Skills & Endorsements
15. Move Sections Around
16. Add / Update Projects
17. Add / Update Publications
18. Ask for Recommendations and Give Recommendations
19. Regularly Share Relevant and Interesting Status Updates
20. Regularly Publish Posts
21. Review Group Memberships
22. Check Your Profile on Mobile and Embeds
23. Daily LinkedIn Activity
24. BONUS: Expert Tips on LinkedIn
Let's get started.

1. Why Use LinkedIn At All?
You may be wondering, if you're not looking for a new job (or just keeping
your options open), why bother trying to craft the best possible LinkedIn
profile? What good will an optimized LinkedIn profile do for you or your
business?
The answer, of course, is plenty. Here's why.
First, bear in mind that a lot of people use LinkedIn. LinkedIn has over 300
million users and most of them login monthly. That's a lot of potential
contacts. There are 107 million users in the U.S. alone, yet over 200
countries are represented.
What's perhaps more interesting is that the average LinkedIn user spends
approximately 17 minutes per day on the platform. That means users go
there with the intention and expectation that they'll be spending some time,
unlike Google+, for instance, which sees an average time spent of just 7
minutes per day.
LinkedIn's membership includes a high percentage of CEOs and Millionaires,
along with millions of people who have neither Twitter nor Facebook profiles,
making it the only platform you can potentially reach them.
Second, LinkedIn has worked hard through the years to establish and
maintain a platform reputation as "the network for professionals." People
tend not to share personal, off-topic information or imagery to the platform,
and are therefore more receptive to professional, business-related topics and
discussions. This means that initiating professional connections and
conversations on LinkedIn is not only normal, it's encouraged.
LinkedIn's messaging system, InMail, is designed to help you create
connections with interested individuals, and recently went through a revision
that resulted in new policies going into effect January 1. In essence, now, if
you have one of the LinkedIn Premium plans that give you an allotment of
InMail messages, you can use them to email any other member of LinkedIn,
regardless of your connection to them. And if they respond to your message,
you get credit back for that InMail. Therefore, you have incentive to craft
personalized and relevant messages, rather than bulk spam. Since,
according to LinkedIn, 48% of B2B decision makers won't respond to sales
professionals who don’t personalize their messages.

So, given the overall membership profile of LinkedIn, and the incredible
opportunities to be seen and to prospect, I think you'll agree it's time to start
improving that LinkedIn Profile of yours.

2. Research Keywords for LinkedIn
Before editing your profile, it will help you if you have a list of targeted
keyword phrases in mind for which you would want to come up in search.
These are the actual words and phrases that you think prospects and
potential connections might actually type into a search. If you're a plumber,
make sure you use the word "plumber" in your profile, along with variations
you think might work like "plumbing." We will be reviewing specific instances
where you can and should use these targeted phrases, so write them down. I
suggest coming up with 10 - 12 and then prioritizing them so that you know
what your most important keyword phrase it.
Before finalizing your list and implementing them, you may want to do a few
LinkedIn searches yourself to see who comes up and if it would be
advantageous for you to be seen ranked above those individuals.
Jot these down in Evernote or someplace handy, and refer back to them
throughout the following recommendations, each time you have an
opportunity to talk about you and your business. While you want to
write everything with your profile viewers and prospects in mind, it is a good
idea to make an effort to work in keywords when possible.

3. Use a Current, Professional Profile Image
First, let's get this out in open right now. If your profile picture is so old you
no longer resemble that person, and your own children wouldn't know that
was you, change it. We're all getting older and most of us would rather be
defined by our younger, better-looking selves, but your professional image
needs to reflect who you are today. I've written at length about what makes
for a good, personal brand image. You should have an excellent profile pic
on LinkedIn and one that's used on all of your other personal profiles as well
— at least the ones you're using to promote your business.
That means this image needs to be up to date and professional. This image
will be showing up anywhere there's a piece of information associated with
you on LinkedIn, which means status updates, published posts, search
results, group discussions, and of course your profile. People will begin to
identify you by your image, and your image will help some people decide
whether to further a conversation with you, so make it count.
And of course, the implied fact is here is that you must have a profile photo.
According to LinkedIn, profiles that include a profile image receive 14x more
views.

4. Add a Cover Photo
7/17 UPDATE: LinkedIn has opened cover photos to everyone.
Are you a LinkedIn Premium member? If not, you may want to consider it. As
a premium member, you'll be able to see more information about other
members, who's looking at your own profile, and you will be able to take
advantage of the new LinkedIn Cover Photo.
I had not been a huge proponent of LinkedIn Premium for business owners
like myself until these recent changes, and now it's a bargain. For a few
bucks a month, I'll get enhanced listings in search results? I already know
from Google Authorship what a benefit that can be. Sign me up! And
I love the branding and customization that a cover photo brings me.
So strongly consider upgrading, and if you do (or have already), create a
custom cover photo for yourself (dimensions and requirements here). Don't
just upload an image you like — make sure that image communicates
something about you and your business to prospects, and add text to help
contextualize the image, or at least add additional information. Here's mine:
Sorry it's a bit squished, since the live graphic is quite wide. This is how one
of your connections will view your cover photo. You can use the "View Profile
As" button to see how your profile looks (but you'll need to ignore an overlay
bar that appears below the black menu bar). Or, if you have someone else
nearby who can look at your LinkedIn profile logged in as themselves, that
works better.
Note the following challenging aspects of creating a LinkedIn Cover Photo:

1. The black "Home" menu renders on top of your cover photo, cutting off
the top slice of your graphic (approximately 25 pixels).
2. Your profile image and current details render above the center of your
graphic (975 x 175).
3. The bottom slice of your graphic is cut off (approximately 25 pixels).
4. A next profile widget appears in the lower right quadrant, suggesting
other similar profiles viewed or the next profile in your search (150 x
150).
5. Left and Right portions may be hidden depending on the
width/resolution of the viewer's browser.
The result is a cover photo graphic that will have the majority of the graphic
hidden from view. Plus, when you are viewing it within your own profile, the
overlays are displayed differently suggesting that your cover photo graphic
needs to be edited. Here's what mine looks like to me:
As you can see, my profile and contact area is larger and now covers the title
of my second book, while the next connection widget is missing entirely. So,
it's important when crafting your LinkedIn Cover Photo that you ignore how it
looks to you and concentrate on how it looks to your connections and
potential connections.
While I had been very happy with how my cover photo looked on other social
networks (Facebook, Twitter, Google+), I was not happy at all with the result
on LinkedIn. Even though I'd created it specifically for LinkedIn, due to the
size of the graphic, the image I'd used looked pixelated, was cut off, and the

text I'd wanted displayed was mostly hidden. So I created an entirely new set
of cover photos in Canva, with the goal in mind of having a LinkedIn cover
photo that did a better job of communicating something about me.
Here's what the new graphic looks like on it's own:
I decided that I wanted to test using my cover photos to promote my books,
and went with the same color scheme, design, and font choices as my
Hootsuite book cover. While I love Canva (www.canva.com) since it allows
non-graphic designers like myself to create great graphics, there are some
limitations. Namely, you cannot transfer or copy elements from one design to
another. So while it was easier to create each of the social network cover
photos once I'd decided on and finalized the first one, it was still a process of
starting from a new graphic each time. Fortunately, Canva does offer
templates for Facebook, Twitter and Google+ that not only set your graphic
to the right size, but also insert profile elements, like your profile image, as
markers so you'll know where they're going to go in relation to the rest of
your graphic (sorry, no template for LinkedIn yet).
To use Canva yourself, go to canva.com and instead of choosing a template,
click on Use custom dimensions and enter 1400 x 425 for a LinkedIn cover
photo, like this:

This will simply provide you with a blank canvas on which to place whatever
visual elements you wish. A few recommendations:
Remember that the top 25 pixels will be cut off, as well as the bottom
175 within the center, leaving you about 175 - 200 pixels of space to
work with. With the left and right sides fluctuating due to the screen,
and potentially covered with a widget, concentrate any text within this
space.
Consider using graphics elements instead of a picture. With Canva,
you can upload any images you like, and in fact that was the route I
took with all my cover photos last year - using a picture of radio
telescopes to convey the idea of communication. But nearly every
image you might choose to use is going to be severely limited in this
instance. Instead, consider the use of colors, textures and shapes, or a
picture which doesn't have specific items in it that will be cut off.
Adjust the zoom within Canva to work or view your work accordingly.
When you start, your graphic will be zoomed out so that you can view
the entire thing, but with such large dimensions, you'll want to zoom in
to have an easier time working with individual elements, so keep that in
mind.
Like any professional graphic, make sure that your LinkedIn cover
photo, and all of your cover photos, use consistent colors, fonts and
elements for great branding and a wonderful overall look. The fonts
also do not have to be too large. The main text (book titles) on my
LinkedIn cover photo graphic are just 24 pt.
If you can have a set of cover photos professionally created for you, I highly
recommend it. A graphic designer will find it much easier to work with the
peculiarities of LinkedIn's cover photo implementation, as well as offer
tremendous visual and branding recommendations. But, if that's just not in
the budget, Canva offers a great alternative. (In case you're curious, I do all
of my personal profile cover photos, but my business cover photos
for Twitter, Facebook, Google+ and even LinkedIn were all professionally
designed.)

5. What's Your Name, and What Do You Do?
Give careful thought to your Name and Title. Along with your profile image,
these are the pieces of information most commonly associated with your
account throughout LinkedIn, so they're extremely important.
Are you using the same exact version of your name as on other web
properties? Make sure you're consistent and professional, and have your full
name with proper capitalization. Do not use your business name or anything
else here. Here's a full checklist to run through:
Use your full name, both first and last, completely spelled out. i.e. Mike
Allton vs. Mike A.
Do not add nicknames or locations or other keywords to your
name. Mike "St. Louis" Allton is not a good idea!
Always capitalize the first letter of each of your names. All caps or all
lower case looks unprofessional.
Do not use any special characters or symbols.
Use the exact same version of your name as you use elsewhere, for
consistency. Don't use "Michael" if you're using "Mike" everywhere
else.
Include your maiden name, if appropriate, in parentheses.
Triple check spelling and that you've put the correct name in the
correct field: first name first, last name second.
Consider adding any former names and determining their visibility.
Not only is your name the first thing any viewer of your profile sees, it's the
first thing people read in the news feed, suggested connections, and most
importantly, in search. If someone's searching for you, or for someone with
your skills, make sure they can find you easily, recognize you, and not be
immediately unimpressed by your profile. While you won't score points by
having your name perfect on your LinkedIn Profile, you can
definitely lose points by presenting yourself as anything less than
professional.
For your title, you should attempt to strike a balance between coming up with
something creative, while at the same time using keywords from your
industry for which you'd like to be associated. "Owner" or "CEO" may be
appropriate, but are hardly helpful to getting you seen by prospects. Mine,
for instance, reads, "Content Marketing Consultant, Author" as that
communicates what I do and who I am.

This is referred to within LinkedIn as your Professional Headline and has a
limit of 120 characters.
While you're editing the information in your header, be sure to check your
location. If you're providing services to a specific geographic area, this is a
critical component. When entering my own zip code, LinkedIn gives me the
option choosing my local city or the greater metro area, which worked better
for me.
And finally, give careful consideration to your Industry. This will appear to
the right of your location at the top of your profile, and give viewers a quick
indication of what kind of business you have. LinkedIn actually suggests that
adding your industry will bring your profile 15x more views!

6. Offer Complete Contact Information
Below your header is a tab for Contact. This contains all of the contact
information that you've chosen to share with your connections. Make sure
this is complete! At a minimum, you should have your email address, phone
number, website and Twitter accounts.
If you want to make yourself available for instant message, like through
Skype, you can include that as well.
Under Websites, you can include up to three. You might link to your Home
page, to your Blog, and to your RSS Feed. Or perhaps you have a second
website you might want prospects to go to, or even your Google+ profile. Do
take advantage of all three slots. And make sure that you edit the label for
each website name to be more interesting and descriptive, rather than just
"Website."

7. Grab a Custom URL
Have you claimed a vanity URL for your LinkedIn profile yet? A vanity URL is
easier to remember and use, and of course looks more branded and
professional. Mine, for instance, is http://www.linkedin.com/in/mikeallton/.
Customize your URL by going to:
http://www.linkedin.com/myprofile?editwp=#
and clicking Customize your public profile URL down on the right-hand side.
Definitely use your name or as close to it as you can get based on what
LinkedIn will allow you to choose and what others may have already taken.
Don't use nicknames, handles or your business name, or anything that could
change in a year.

8. Make Sure Your Profile Is Visible
If you're hoping to get business from your LinkedIn profile, than you want to
make sure that anyone can view it, whether they're logged in or not.
In the same drop down menu next to the Edit Profile button, click on Manage
public profile settings. The left side will be what anyone can view from your
profile, and along the right you'll see a set of checkboxes for each of your
sections. Generally, you'd want to have them all visible, but do take a
moment to review them and make sure you're not invisible to the public.
Also, let's take a moment to review what other LinkedIn members can see as
well. Click on your profile image in the upper right corner of the screen to
access your account menu, and click on Privacy & Settings. Here you can:
Make sure EVERYONE can view your activity feed.
Turn on or off your activity broadcasts
Select what others can see when you view their profile (image, name
and headline recommended)
Enable Open Profile if you're a Premium member

9. Consider a Profile Badge
While technically not an optimization of your profile itself, it's certainly a
good idea to make sure that other people know they can find you on
LinkedIn. I use a rich signature in my email that includes linked icons for my
top social networks, and have a similar set of icons in my Bio below this and
every other blog I write. Depending on your own site and situation, you might
take advantage of one of the LinkedIn Badges available here:
https://www.linkedin.com/profile/profile-badges?goback=
Here's what mine looks like:

10. Support Additional Languages
Do you cater to other countries and languages? If so, you can offer your
profile visitors an alternate version in their language. Visitors to your profile
will see available languages as a drop-down to the right of your top details
box.
To the right of the View Profile As button, click on the down arrow to reveal
an additional options menu and click on Create profile in another language.
You can choose from several dozen languages, with more being added
regularly.

When you add additional languages, all you've done is create a template for
your profile with much of the same information duplicated. What
you don't have is an automatic translation. Once you've added one or more
language templates, you'll need to create or obtain accurate translations of
your Summary and other fields, and enter them accordingly.
To add translated text to one of your alternate language profiles, simply
select that profile from the drop-down selector and then edit as normal. Only
that version of your profile will be changed. New sections or aspects of major
sections, like Experience or Projects, have to be added to the primary profile
first. They will then be automatically copied to all secondary profiles.
PRO TIP: If you have an international audience, consider each
language / demographic carefully. If your scope of services or products
is different for, say, Italy, you can use your Italian profile to reflect
those differences and say something completely different in your
Summary.
While I have not yet had time to secure accurate translations, I intend to
offer complete Spanish, French and Italian versions of my profile. What
languages might make sense for you?

11. Update Your Connections
If you've never used the LinkedIn Networking tools, or perhaps it's been a
while, now's a good time. In fact, I recommend doing a quick check every
month so that you can connect with people you've emailed recently.
Basically, LinkedIn will scan your email accounts (with your permission) and
offer to send a connection invitation to any existing members LinkedIn finds
in your address book.
Head up to Connections and click on Add Connections. Select an email
service that you're currently using, like Gmail, and follow the online
instructions to authorize your account and allow LinkedIn to identify potential
connections.
Once LinkedIn has scanned your account, you will be presented with a list of
individuals whom you've emailed and have LinkedIn accounts associated
with that same email address. Since you already have their email, LinkedIn
won't ask you to confirm or supply anything — you can simply select the
people who you know and want to connect with and LinkedIn will issue the
invitation. I recently connected my Gmail account and was presented with
over 400 potential new contacts.

12. Update Your Background
The Background section includes your Summary and any media you choose
to associate with it. Your Summary can include up to 2000 characters and I
strongly recommend using every single available space. According to
LinkedIn, summaries that have more than 40 words makes you more likely to
turn up in appropriate searches, which makes complete sense. The more
you're talking about your business and industry, the more likely you are to
use important keywords.
The first and most common mistake here is to write a brief biography of
yourself or your work history. Not only is that boring, it's also ineffective
when you're trying to land business for yourself. You aren't trying to get
hired, so why write for a job interview?
Instead, treat the Summary field like it's the Home Page of your
website. Talk to your prospects and really try to reach out and engage them.
Explain a little bit about who you are, but focus more on what you do for
people. And this should not read like a list of services. People don't buy
services. They buy solutions or experiences. If you talk about how you're
going to help me, I'm far more likely to relate and to want to learn more.
That said, at the bottom of my Background, I do include a list of specific
services or topics. This certainly helps your profile's optimization, but it also
mentions some specific services, like Pay Per Click or Social Advertising,
that you may not be able to work into the rest of your prose.
If you're a Premium member, when you go to edit your Background, LinkedIn
will offer suggestions of additional keywords to add, and highlight strong
business words that you're already doing well to integrate.

13. Add Media / Links
One of the outstanding features of your LinkedIn profile is the option to add
Media to some sections. Media can include images, links or video, and can
serve to help educate and engage profile visitors.
Look for this icon in the upper right of sections:
Under your Summary, you can add up to 10 Media entries, which will be
displayed in a layered brick fashion. I strongly recommend selecting your
best, most appropriate blog posts and videos and link them here. Only the
first five will be displayed initially, so prioritize your media links and make
your first two the most important two.

In addition to the Summary section, you can also add Media to individual
positions you've held within Experience, and individual institutions you've
attended within Education. Again, since you're using your LinkedIn profile to
get leads and sales for your business, it's likely that your past jobs and the
schools you attended are meaningless. However, you have presumably put
your current business as your current job within Experience, so take
advantage of this feature and add a couple more links there, perhaps to

specific services or key landing pages. I chose to link to The Social Media
Hat's About Page, as well as our key services page.

14. Review Skills & Endorsements
The Skills & Endorsements section is one of the most misunderstood and
berated features of LinkedIn, so it's not surprising that most people aren't
taking advantage of all this section has to offer. Yet according to LinkedIn,
members who include skills and utilize this section receive 13x more profile
views.
And most of the criticism stems from the fact that members can endorse
other members for anything, so it's possible for other people to endorse you
for skills you don't have, or wouldn't want to display on your profile. Yet you
retain complete control over what skills are displayed, and even which skills
you can receive endorsements on.
Click on Edit next to the Skills & Endorsements section to edit your skills.
First, if you really don't want to use this feature, you can turn it off here.
Next, you can choose whether or not your connections should be encouraged
to endorse you (YES!) and whether or not you want to be encouraged to
endorse them (ALSO YES!).
Next you'll see a list of the skills you've already added, and a field to add
more. You can list up to 50 skills, so fill it up! Make sure that you've decided
for yourself what 50 skills you want to be endorsed for, as this will ensure
you don't get lots of endorsements for random skills. Refer back to the
LinkedIn Keywords list we created earlier.
Now it's time to prioritize those skills. The skills that are most relevant to
your business and the kind of work you want to get should be listed first, so
drag your skills around until they're in the order you want. Once saved, the
top ten will be listed along with thumbnails of your endorsers, followed by a
list of the next 15 skills, and a button to see the final 25. So note that only
your top 25 skills are seen on your profile.
Since the first ten skills are the ones that viewers of your profile can easily
endorse, I often cycle different skills into that top ten listing to give them a
bump in endorsements. For instance, I recently added "Blog Coach" as a skill
in addition to the "Blogging" and "Content Marketing" skills I was already
displaying. Since it's a new skill, it hasn't received many endorsements yet,

so I put it in my top ten to get it more attention. It will soon be in the 99+
listings like many other skills.

Having these skills serves two important purposes. First, they are additional
uses of the keywords we talked about earlier. Your skills should reflect the
topics and expertise that potential clients are looking for. Second, many
potential clients will see this list and if you've done a good job of optimizing
skills and getting endorsements, this section will help reaffirm what you were
talking about in the previous Background section.
So before we move on, let me touch on an obvious question many of you
may have at this point, "how do I get more endorsements?" I don't ever
recommend asking for endorsements. Either you're asking people you don't
know and that's awkward, or you're asking people you do know and whom
you've worked with, and that seems a waste. If I've worked for you and done
a good job, I'm better served by asking for a recommendation, which I'll get
to in a moment. Instead, focus on giving endorsements. Each time you view
someone's profile, LinkedIn will suggest a few endorsements, and as long as
they seem appropriate, go ahead and endorse them. Then, LinkedIn will
bring up four of your other connections and recommend skills to endorse
them for, do those too. Each time you endorse someone else, they'll get a
notification that you did that for them, and be prompted to endorse you for a
skill in return.
Do you see the beauty of this system? Not only are you being nice to other
people and encouraging more endorsements for yourself, you're also
regularly "dripping" on your other connections in a very unobtrusive yet
valuable way.
So as soon as you've finished optimizing your own skills, go endorse a bunch
of your connections. Make that a party of your daily LinkedIn routine (which
we'll expand on in a moment).
(That said, if you think I've shown particular expertise with LinkedIn as a
result of this or other posts, please do feel free to visit my LinkedIn
profile, scroll down within the Skills & Endorsements section, and give me a
happy endorsement for "LinkedIn" by clicking the + button to the right of that
skill. Thanks!)

15. Move Sections Around
Another feature that many LinkedIn members aren't aware of is that some of
the sections of your profile can be moved around, allowing you to customize
and prioritize the information you present connections and prospects.
Look for this icon in the upper right of your sections:
Sections that can be rearranged include:
1. Summary
2. Skills & Endorsements
3. Publications
4. Certifications
5. Projects
6. Additional Info
7. Volunteer Experience & Causes
8. Organizations
9. Experience
10. Education
11. Courses
And that happens to be the order in which I currently display my information.
Note that Experience and Education are near the bottom — that's because
none of my clients and prospects have ever asked me where I went to
school, or what my previous jobs were. If you're trying to get hired, these are
critical points of data, but not important for getting business.
Within some of the sections, you can also reorder elements. We already
talked about Skills & Endorsements, but you should also review the order of
information you have within:
Publications
Projects
Volunteer Experience & Causes
Education

You might also be using a few sections that I'm not: Languages, Honors &
Awards, Test Scores or Patents. If those apply, make sure you use them and
place them accordingly.

16. Add / Update Projects
The Projects section is an ideal place to show off some of your actual work,
similar to a portfolio. One of the great ways in which you can communicate to
a potential client what you can do for them is by showing them what you've
done for other similar businesses.
Unfortunately, it's currently a rather static section. Individual projects are
listed much like past job experience, without the option to add Media. If you
can provide an outstanding description of what you did, or perhaps the
names/brands themselves will lend some weight, definitely take advantage.
If, however, you work in a more visual field, I recommend having a gorgeous
portfolio on your own website and linking to it from here.

17. Add / Update Publications
Publications isn't just for published books and written work, though if you've
been published that should definitely be included here. You can also include
links to blog posts, particularly if you've contributed articles on sites other
than your own.
I list my book first, and then some of my best guest articles on other sites
and publications.

I wouldn't recommend listing every single one of your guest articles here —
just a nice sample to show a prospect that you've been published elsewhere,
beyond your own website. 4 - 6 entries in this section seems like a
reasonable number. But of course there are always exceptions. Just like the
one-page resume rule can be broken by someone with an exceptional
history, if you've been published in a dozen incredible places, or have an
extensive library of books that you've authored, list 'em.

18. Ask for Recommendations and Give Recommendations
Recommendations are an extraordinarily powerful tool within LinkedIn. They
represent independent reviews of your business, and can go a long way
toward establishing your expertise with potential prospects.
And while recommendations can only be displayed for the specific position
for which they were given, they're still a powerful conversion tool.
Make sure that you're displaying all of the recommendations you've received.
And then take the time regularly to ask your satisfied customers and
connections for recommendations.
Note that I said "your satisfied customers and connections." Do not ask your
other connections, who have never worked with you, for a recommendation.
If I don't know you beyond our LinkedIn connection, why would I recommend
you?
Now, that said, it's becoming increasingly common for people to offer
recommendations for other people based on the value they've provided, even
if it wasn't a paid position. For instance, I recently wrote a recommendation
for Peg Fitzpatrick based solely on her blog content and the incredible
knowledge she's shared with me freely. I offered that recommendation
without any expectation of receiving one in return, but the fact is the more
often you recommend others, particularly for less transactional relationships
and benefits, the more recommendations you will receive in return.
I also have an article that can help you with writing LinkedIn
recommendations so that they're both powerful and effective, yet not time
consuming to create.

19. Regularly Share Relevant and Interesting Status Updates
Sharing status updates to LinkedIn isn't just about putting your content into
the stream and driving traffic - it's about establishing your reputation and
authority on a given topic. It's about demonstrating a willingness to share
information that your followers might find helpful. And it's about making sure
that your presence on LinkedIn is active and engaged.
So sharing updates helps keep your profile fresh, as well as bring more
attention to it.
But don't forget the "relevant and interesting" part. You can't just spam
company news and specials, or random news items. Unlike Facebook, your
connections expect you to provide real value and professional content. That
means sharing your own blog posts as well as links to other people's articles
and content. News and information that relates to your business and is of
interest to your followers.
I recommend a combination of live updates and pre-scheduled activity.
The live updates are simply shares of content that catch my attention
throughout the day. They're most often published posts from my other
connections, which I'll get into in a moment. The updates might also include
the latest posts from my favorite bloggers, news items from my industry, or
other articles I've surfaced using tools like the Syndicator app within my
Hootsuite dashboard.
The pre-scheduled activity is 75% my own evergreen content. I've got over
400 articles here on my site that are all evergreen and interesting... and have
been missed by many of my followers and connections. By routinely re-
sharing this old content, I can surface those articles for many more people. I
use Buffer to schedule and manage my LinkedIn status updates.

20. Regularly Publish Posts
LinkedIn has implemented an actual blogging platform within the network
which allows you to craft and publish posts like you would on your own blog.
I will be sharing more soon on my own experiences and why I think it's such
a great idea in general, but for now, let's focus on what Published Posts do
for your profile.
When you share a status update on LinkedIn, it appears in the stream of your
followers and is quickly buried under the updates from all of their other
connections. When you create a Published Post, however, it appears at the
top of your profile, just above your Summary. In fact, your most recent two
posts appear. If you include a great image with the posts, they really add a
great element front and center. (This is also why it's so important not to
publish rubbish there.)
So just like with your own blog, make sure that you're regularly sharing great
new posts directly on LinkedIn.
If you don't yet have access to this feature, just wait. LinkedIn is gradually
rolling it out to all members.

21. Review Group Memberships
Finally, take a moment each month to review the LinkedIn Groups that you're
a member of. Are they offering you valuable discussions and connection
opportunities? Are you in groups that are appropriate for your business and
industry? And have you joined the maximum 50 groups? While many
LinkedIn Groups have devolved to nothing more than link dumps, there are
still many that can be valuable assets. Participate in those groups, and make
sure that viewers of your profile can see the groups that you're in.

22. Check Your Profile on Mobile and Embeds
With more and more people using their smartphones to network and research
(and LinkedIn reports 47% of usage is via mobile currently), how your profile
looks to a mobile user is important. So take a few moments to open the
LinkedIn app on your device and review your own profile.
Now, some of the fields will be a bit different since you're logged in and able
to edit your profile on mobile, but the overall layout and information will be
the same for you as for other users.
Is your profile image clear? Is your title succinct enough? Does everything
else look OK?

Along the same lines, think about whether or not you're embedding your
LinkedIn profile anywhere. Most people aren't, or if they are, they're only
using the LinkedIn Badge as a static image. But LinkedIn does offer a widget
that displays a portion of your profile, much like Google+ and Facebook, so
keep that in mind. If you're embedding that widget anyplace within your
website, double-check it as well for both functionality and appearance.
By the way, if you're interested in displaying your own profile widget or any
of the other available LinkedIn widgets, they're available on the LinkedIn
Plugins page.

21. Daily LinkedIn Activity
Like every other network, success on LinkedIn requires that you be present
regularly. There are many activities that you can be doing with regard to lead
generation and prospect research, but there are a specific set of activities I
recommend you perform daily.
1. Endorse Others
2. Review Recent Profile Views
3. Share Evergreen Content
4. Share Curated Content
5. Comment on Group Posts
We talked above about the importance of regularly endorsing other people.
Whether or desktop or mobile, take a few minutes each day to endorse some
of your connections, and you'll be rewarded for the effort.
One of the interesting and unique aspects of LinkedIn is that the network will
show you a portion of the members who are viewing your profile. While this
may feel somewhat like stalking at first, the reality is that people are
checking out our profiles on every social network all day long. We usually
just aren't given the courtesy of a heads-up. So take advantage of the fact
that you have access to this information, and pay attention to who is
reviewing your profile. You may find that a prospect or even a cold lead has
viewed your profile, and might be an opportunity to open a conversation.
Throughout each day, you should be sharing status updates that offer your
connections interesting, valuable information. To me that means sharing a
combination of links to my own articles, and links to articles other people
have published, creating a constant, helpful stream of posts. I use a
combination of manual shares, Buffer and Hootsuite to make sure that each
day, I'm providing value, but also ensuring that those posts aren't all shared
at once. So each morning, at a minimum, queue up some shares for
throughout the day.
And finally, make sure that you have some measure of activity in your most
important LinkedIn Groups. Have some specific groups identified and pop
into them for a few minutes each day to see what other members have
shared, and engage with them. Like a few posts or leave a comment if you're
so inclined. If you find a particularly interesting article, share it with your own

audience and mention that person so they know you appreciated what they
shred.
A lot of this activity can be done via mobile, so make sure you have the
mobile LinkedIn app installed for either iOS or Android.
Here's a quick infograph to help you remember all of these tips:

If you take the time up front to make your LinkedIn profile as good as it can
be, and then follow up with these kinds of regular activities, you'll see your
number of connections rising, your engagement with others improving, the
traffic to your website from LinkedIn increasing, and your number of leads
and sales as a result of LinkedIn going up.
Once you've made some or all of these changes and improvements to your
LinkedIn profile, be sure to review how it looks! LinkedIn has upgraded your
ability to preview your profile. Click on the View Profile As button to
transition to preview mode. LinkedIn then allows you to toggle between
Connections and Public. Make sure everything about your LinkedIn profile
looks perfect for you, and in line with your business goals.

BONUS: Expert Tips on LinkedIn
Expert Tip #1: Sarah Santacrose suggests, "I would add [to work on] the
'Additional Info' section where you can add your 'interests' = think keywords
and add 'Advice for contacting Mike'. This can be used as a 'closing' where
you remind people one more time how they can reach you and you sign off
with your first and last name (just like you would close a letter)."
Expert Tip #2: Stephan Hovnanian points out that it's important to remember
your LinkedIn profile when you have new campaigns or events going on.
Your Summary is a great place to highlight what's happening right now or
special offers, and a good place to invite viewers into your opt-in list,
particularly if you have a digital download to offer.
Expert Tip #3: Andy Foote writes that the Summary remains one of the most
important sections on your LinkedIn Profile. Why? Because it’s the only area
on the Profile where you get to define yourself from scratch, with a blank
sheet, unencumbered by dates, labels or other text boxes. Because it’s the
first thing people read whether they’ve decided to click on your
Photo/Headline or if they’ve actively searched on your name. Because it’s
personal – it’s where people look to find out what makes you tick. This
excerpt is from his post "http://www.linkedinsights.com/3-stunningly-good-
linkedin-profile-summaries/" which has been shared on LinkedIn over 1,000
times!
Expert Tip #4: Theresa Merrill says that being proactive is the key to
generating leads on LinkedIn. "Who's viewed my profile" is where you
engage with LinkedIn users that may not be connections yet. What I advise is
you acknowledge this viewer, just as you would acknowledge someone who
walked into your place of business. First, look at the person's profile to learn
who they are, and what common bonds you share. Then use that information
to compose a customized invite that shows you did your homework. I use an
invitation to do this, so at the very least I obtain a new connection, which is
always a goal. In addition to mentioning you saw they viewed your profile,
and something you know about them, I always provide a valuable tip for their
profile. This builds a strong foundation for your new relationship. To learn
more networking tips read Theresa's post.
Expert Tip #5: Neal Schaffer suggests that, "In order to maximize your
company’s exposure on LinkedIn … every sales and marketing employee that
represents your business needs to have a LinkedIn profile." Such

connections increase your own company's visibility, as well as that of your
individual employees. For more on employee advocacy from Neal, click here.

References
While most of the above recommendations and information were obtained through
personal observation and experimentation, there are a few statistics and pieces of
information shared that came from external sources.
https://press.linkedin.com/about-linkedin
http://blog.linkedin.com/2014/04/22/professional-photos-on-linkedin-are-worth-a-
thousand-opportunities/
http://mashable.com/2012/11/28/social-media-time/
http://www.marketingpilgrim.com/2014/09/the-average-ceo-has-3-9k-twitter-
followers-630-facebook-friends.html
http://expandedramblings.com/index.php/by-the-numbers-a-few-important-
linkedin-stats/

About The Author
Mike Allton is a Social Media Consultant and Blog Coach
in St. Louis. He has been working with websites and the
Internet since the early '90's. He is active on all of the
major social networks and enjoys writing and teaching
small business owners on how to leverage the Internet to
promote and grow their business. Mike provides training
and seminars to businesses and individuals on topics like
"Content Marketing - Using Blogging + Social Media +
SEO to equal Small Business Success" or "Establishing a
Brand on Google+" or "How to use HootSuite to Manage
Your Social Media Presence."
Mike is also the author of, "The Unofficial Book On HootSuite: The #1 Tool for Social
Media Management."

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