LinkedIn? Why would I want to be on LinkedIn? I don’t own a multi-billion-dollar company – so why would anyone want to connect with me?
Well, long gone are the days where a logo would tell clients everything they needed to know about your company and the most colourful advertisement would catch attention. People aren’t buying into that anymore. People are buying into people. The fact is, if you are in business, your online presence portrays yourself and your business to the world. It is estimated that there are 10-15 million engineers worldwide – your personal brand needs to be strong enough to stand out in this cluttered environment.
As engineers, it’s time to get into self-branding and the best platform to start that journey in the business world is LinkedIn.
Branding on LinkedIn simply means knowing how to highlight what you have to offer. With millions of accounts on LinkedIn, without fine-tuning your “brand”, you might get lost in the crowd. Stand out from the pack by rocking your personal brand with these seven tips.
Design Your Narrative
When someone first comes in contact with your profile, they will make an instant decision to keep reading – or pass on to the next profile – who is probably your competitor. Because of this, you need to focus on optimizing your profile to make it stand out.
To do this, choose the past jobs to put on your profile and which parts of these jobs to highlight – ensuring that these directly match the brand you are wanting to build.
Add Keywords
Think about what someone might type into Google if they were searching for someone like you. What are your job titles or qualifications? Consider where you’re located, your business name, etc.
Add your Elevator Pitch
If someone messages you or you want to talk to them about your brand, have a good 30 second elevator speech ready. If it is in online message form, you can use a one paragraph pitch instead. Keep it short, simple and straight to the point. Your pitch is only as good as the weakest link.
Focus on your connections
LinkedIn is a professional networking account, so simply going out and connecting with your friends really isn’t necessary. Sure, it can boost some exposure, which is fine, but you need to focus on the quality of your connections. Don’t just connect to connect. Seek out people in your field, look for those you admire or who represents their company in a way you like.
Use the Publisher Tool and Share Other Content
Consider writing content on the subject matter you’re interested in. Create a weekly or bi-weekly blog based on your personal brand. This will help boost your exposure and bring additional connections. And if you read something that represents your brand well, even if you didn’t create it yourself, share it and like it. Others will see this. This can bring about new connections simply for leveraging the other content.
Customise your URL
When you create a LinkedIn account you’ll end up with some garbled mess of a URL. So make sure you customise your URL. It helps it stand out on a page.
Industry Photo
Use a profile photo that represents not only your professional side but connects with the industry. Try to keep your branding images consistent across all of your online pages.