In today’s world with a huge number of people online, it’s important to have a great online personal brand forrnindividuals. People typically look up for individuals they are planning to meet or planning to speak to over arncall. It means your online reputation precedes you and it becomes the basic first impression aboutrnindividuals. Hence it is time to focus on personal branding.
“You never get a second chance to make a first impression”. If you are serious about first impressions thenrnit's time for some serious discussion on personal branding.rnFor Personal branding first port of call is LinkedIn. It is the ideal platform for your professional reputation andrnbrand. We have listed down some easy to do but important steps for a good professional standing inrnLinkedIn.
Here are 6 hacks to build a great personal brand on LinkedIn
1 A picture is worth 1,000 words:rnThere are two aspects to this
It has to be a good professional headshot (Not a cut out from some group pic you had taken ages ago). TthernLinkedIn background also has to be a good professional formal background in case you want to projectrnyourself as a very decent working professional. In case you are from a creative field you can choose thernLinkedIn background accordingly but I would suggest keeping the headshot professional.
2 The images that are shared in status messages on your profile. Nothing tells a story online like multimedia! LinkedIn gives you several options and features including videos, images, audio, Slide Share presentations, etc. The objective of all these is to provide users a compellingrnmedium to tell their story in a way that plain text can never deliver to them and provide the correctrninformation.
Amongst these features, the most exciting feature is of a video because it allows people to get to know you.rnWhen you consider the fact that having a short intro video allows you to tell your story and make a good firstrnimpression with someone you have never met, and that may live on the other side of the country or the otherrnside of the word. That’s powerful!
2 Content is the key:rnIt becomes very important for you to deliver the right and correct information. As that is going to gain thernattention of the people. Using content to position yourself as a valuable resource, a thought leader, andrnexpert is one of the most effective ways to connect with and engage your target market.
But how can we do that on LinkedIn?rnSharing content on regular basis is one of the fastest, effective and easiest ways to be present in front ofrnyour LinkedIn network. The only key is to focus on content that is highly relevant to your exact target group ofrnaudience.LinkedIn publishing, or also known as LinkedIn articles or LinkedIn Pulse posts, it is an incredible tool that allows LinkedIn users to position themselves as thought leaders in their industry by simply writing short but highly targeted content. Unlike most blogs that no one has ever heard of, LinkedIn will automatically notify your connections/followers that a new post is available which leads to instant traffic to our post.
I'd also suggest exploring Quora and Medium put in your post there and share that on LinkedIn. It is notrnnecessary that you publish all your blog on LinkedIn only
3 Be easy to be foundrnWhen we first setup our LinkedIn account we are assigned to a random and not so user-friendly URL for yourrnprofile. That’s why it’s important to claim your custom vanity URL.rnThe URL which is not custom and is long, clunky and difficult to use. Here you can see my custom URLrnwhich is short and fits into an overall branding strategy.rnYou should also ensure that you do not use any special characters in your name because if you do, you willrnnot come up in searches when your network does a search on Google or other platforms.
4 Stop selling and be helpful:rnDon’t behave like a car salesman on LinkedIn no one likes it and it will damage your brand. Instead be helpful share some stories from your professional life and what you learned from them. By doing that people connect with you on a more personal level and engage better with your content.rnAlso when you share thought-provoking stories or examples people start commenting and in some cases, the comments act more like a validation/ testimonial to what you said.
5 Be different, be unique:rnKeep your thoughts and contents fresh and unique, it's good to be different and unique but you should ensure that you follow all the professional etiquettes that are followed in a professional word on LinkedIn as well because LinkedIn is like a virtual professional world. One of the most basic things you can do is use a unique custom header on LinkedIn. Most LinkedIn users don’t realize that they have the ability to add a custom header to their profile, and it’s one of the many important features for all LinkedIn users. The custom background allows you to enhance your brand by further telling your story.
6 LinkedIn RecommendationsrnYou should also consider getting LinkedIn recommendations if you’re serious about leveraging LinkedIn tornbuild your brand as an in~uencer. LinkedIn recommendations are one of the most powerful but underutilizedrnfeatures on LinkedIn. Give a sincere and honest recommendation for a customer, vendor, employee, thought leader or a new connection you met or recently did business with. If you have provided them value and then given them arnrecommendation, they will reciprocate without you ever having to ask. As a part of your follow-up with allrnnew clients be sure to ask them for a LinkedIn recommendation. The best time to get a recommendation isrnjust after you deliver value but you can’t be shy about it.rnThese are simple to implement strategies, which will make a lot of difference when it comes to developingrnyour personal branding on LinkedIn.