Ten Tips for a better LinkedIn profile 8/10

Your LinkedIn Profile is certainly your first, and can be your last chance to make a positive impression online.

It’s a combination of a sales pitch, a personal presentation, a business card, a brochure, a personal statement, a list of recommendations, a mini web-site, and a wave from across the room. It has a lot of work to do, and it only has a few seconds to either succeed or fail in doing that work. So — how do you make it a success?

This is the eighth of Ten Top Tips with my compliments, to help you make your LinkedIn Profile more effective. Enjoy!

Don’t want to read? Listen to this on SoundCloud. (1m 49s)

Ten Tips for a Better LinkedIn Profile: 8/10

Tip 8: Talk to strangers…

But talk directly.

You should write your profile in the first person: say “I am David Petherick”, not “David Petherick is…” and talk to the individual who is reading your page, someone who is just your kind of customer.

Imagine you are speaking to a friend — write as if you are talking to that friend, one to one.

Once you’ve written a draft of your profile, try asking someone who does not really know your “business persona” to assess it — perhaps a family member — or ask a connection on LinkedIn by emailing it to them.

The objective feedback they give will help you to improve your profile, and you will also pick up on areas where you have not explained things clearly. They also may spot some typos or grammar errors!

Other people, if asked to give an honest assessment, will quickly spot gaps and pick up on unclear, cliched or redundant phrases. They will spot when you are faking it or talking in ManagementSpeak Gobbledygook BS.

If nobody else will talk to you, I will — just follow me or connect on LinkedIn and ping me a message here or via Twitter, my email is david[at]petherick.org — I’ll give you a free 10-minute assessment of your profile’s strengths and weaknesses and send them to you.

So in a sentence:

Get someone whose judgement you value to check over things for you on your profile, because if it does not make sense to them at one reading, it needs more work.

___

I am David Petherick, Director of First Impressions at Amazes.Me
I make your online presence visible, legible and credible at I Own My Own Name. Follow me on Twitter at @petherick_ or circle me on Google Plus. Please feel free to connect on LinkedIn

You can listen to all of my Tips for a better LinkedIn Profile at https://soundcloud.com/petherick/sets/linkedin-top-ten-tips

Originally published at www.linkedin.com on December 30, 2014.