With the start of a new year, it may be time to take a fresh look at your LinkedIn profile. Could it use a little sprucing up? With 800 million members and six people hired through LinkedIn every minute, there is no doubt that an effectively used LinkedIn page can play a key role in your job search and your professional representation. Here are five things to take a look at to tweak your profile:
1. Update your profile picture.
Over and over again, experts on making the best use of your Linkedin profile mention the importance of the profile picture. The picture should be current and look like you. Also, you should have a high resolution picture with good lighting and a non-distracting background. Finally, make sure your face takes up most of the photo, with professional clothing and an appealing facial expression.
2. Take another look at your buzzwords.
Using buzzwords and keywords can be a confusing task. On one hand, LinkedIn profiles DO need them to catch the viewer’s eye and highlight key skills and suitability for the positions you are looking for. On the other hand, some become overused and outdated with time–and quickly! A 2017 article shares some of the most overused words on profiles. For that reason, target those buzzwords and ask yourself, are these still relevant? Are they too unoriginal in the current job market? Have they become meaningless? If so, what are better words to specifically highlight your skills? Go back and peruse job descriptions from your field and see if new words have become prominent that would better highlight your skill set.
3. Create content.
By creating content on a regular schedule, you give yourself an opportunity to reach and interact with a wider audience and with more frequency. Likewise, you have an opportunity to share your areas of expertise. Posts can vary in length, and when people comment, you can open up conversations with your audience.
4. Use hashtags.
Experts encourage users to include anywhere from one to five hashtags to reach target audiences. While one or two should reach a more general, larger audience, two to three hashtags should be more specific to reach a narrower and more targeted audience.
5. Use or update visuals.
Using visuals on your profile adds obvious appeal–and follows some of the same rules as your profile picture. Visuals should be high resolution, current, relevant, and strategically placed. Your background photo should add more context to your profile and reflect your skills and goals. In any featured content, visuals break up the text and reinforce your message.
Let your LinkedIn profile work for you and represent all you have to offer by taking these five tips to jump start your year. Our experts are always available to help you optimize your full potential through LinkedIn. In the past decade, LinkedIn has become a major element in the job search and in the professional world; make sure your profile reflects all you have to offer.