LinkedIn is a professional social network for individuals and companies. It is specifically designed for the business community where professionals can truly showcase their personal brand. It is the most popular site for professional social networking with 238 million users and 40% of these users check LinkedIn every day, so if you do not have one, you should make one.So, what makes LinkedIn the perfect place to establish your professional brand?
First of all, it is absolutely free! This is one of the best places to get in contact with recruiters and other professionals for anything related to business. You can get a job through LinkedIn or get recommendations and endorsements for your skills and expertise.
There are many ways to promote your brand through LinkedIn. One of the most important ways is the summary section which is similar to the “elevator speech”. This is the place for you to tell your story and use the rest of your LinkedIn profile to support that story. Furthermore, the summary section truly enables those that view your profile to establish a connection with your personal brand. For example, if you are a student looking for an internship, then state this in the summary and move your reader to action (get readers to contact you).
Another great place on LinkedIn to promote your professional brand is headline. You can use your current job title or anything you like that will attract other people to read through your profile. The headline is one of the most important branding tool because it can be used to get the right people to look at your profile.
Other ways to promote your brand on LinkedIn include the volunteer section, interest section, experience and etc. It can essentially be any section on LinkedIn if you use it right. Although these sections are just as important, I believe that the summary and the headline section deserve most of the credit for promoting your professional brand.
Other References
Ryan, Liz. "Put a Human Voice in Your LinkedIn Headline." LinkedIn. N.p., 14 June 2013. Web. 20 Sept. 2013.
Sundberg, Jorgen. "Do Yourself a Favor and Spruce Up Your LinkedIn Summary!" The Undercover Recruiter. N.p., n.d. Web. 20 Sept. 2013.
Sindhu,
ReplyDeleteInteresting take on the topic. I like how you describe the various ways to sell your brand, or you talent, on LinkedIn. However, what i don't see in this blog, is 'You'. Even though the blog is very well written, it seems very general and cliche. Add some of your personal takes on the pros and cons of the topics you've included and make it a bit more personal.
Other than that, i like the overall transition and flow.
(Cute QR Code by the way. Goes very well with your blog's theme!)
Good Job and Happy Blogging!
- Tushar
Hey Sindhu,
ReplyDeleteA very nice blog on LinkedIn. you wrote a lot of information about branding yourself on LinkedIn. I had a LinkedIn profile for a while, but i never used it or even never updated it till we took the cs100w class. Now that once we are supposed to write this blog, i did research and saw how much it is worthy and useful to have LinkedIn profile updated. I like how you deeply explained the ways LinkedIn can be used for branding.