You are the face of your business, the person your clients see when they purchase your products or services so building your personal brand is a must.
One thing many business owners struggle with is getting caught up in the everyday running of their businesses, they neglect the time needed to strategically market themselves and build their personal brands.
What they fail to realise is they are a direct reflection of their brand, that brand will become your calling card and remember a poor first impression is really hard to overcome.
Establishing an identity and successful personal brand will not only help you distinguish yourself from your peers but generate more leads, attract more business and generate more income for your business.
LinkedIn is a great way to build your personal brand and I’ve got some tips for you today which will help you build your brand on the platform.
Here are some top tips for building your personal brand:
Identify keywords you want to be visible for
Make sure you identify the keywords that you want to rank for and use them in your profile. For example, if you’re a sales coach use words that your potential clients are going to be searching for. E.G Sale, Sales Training, Sales Management.
Once you determine your keywords you should use them in your headline, job title, summary, about section, experience and throughout your profile.
When you choose the right keywords it will make a huge difference and will determine whether your profile is being found in a search.
Optimise your LinkedIn Profile Headline
This section will provide you with a platform to explain to your audience who you are, what you do and how you can help them. With 120 characters it’s the optimal spot to get very specific on what you are all about and more importantly what problems you solve for your clients.
Use my profile as an example:
Optimise your Profile Summary
This section is perfect for explaining who you are and what you do. You will have 2000 characters to get your message across and some helpful things to include are:
- Explain in your own voice who you are
- Explain how you solve your client’s problems
- How your clients can connect with you
- A precise call to action
Update your profile Image
You can’t start polishing your profile and building your personal brand without the right profile photo from the get-go. You’ll want to leave a positive impression the moment someone lands on your profile.
Here are some tips for the perfect profile image:
- Make sure you are the only person in the image
- Make sure you don’t have a loud background that takes away from your headshot. Keep it plain and simple on a clear background. See my profile pic example at the end of this section
- The background should match your profile header
- Use soft natural light
- Use a high-quality HD image
When uploading your background image make sure to use the appropriate sizing, your logo image should be 268 (w) x 268 (h) pixels in size.
Update and brand your LinkedIn Cover Photo
As your profile picture is super important in terms of making a great first impression so is having the right banner at the top of your profile. You can use mine above as a guide.
Make sure your branding is on point and there isn’t too much distraction in terms of words on the page. You will get to explain what you do in the profile summary and your profile headline.
Update your LinkedIn content strategy and post the right content
LinkedIn has always been a great place for networking and building relationships with your clients, building content that engages your audience is essential for success on LinkedIn. By creating quality content you will not only generate higher engagement you can also become the trusted source for your audience which is going to add to your personal brand. Being the trusted source in your industry is really the goal for any content maker and a great way on the platform to build your brand.
Here are some content ideas to help you connect with your target audience:
- Host live events on LinkedIn: Live stream to your entire audience via LinkedIn live, this type of content will allow your audience to engage with your content in a live environment, you can also do joint events with other speakers and leverage their audience as well.
- Add LinkedIn polls to encourage engagement: polls offer interactive functionality and can also increase engagement and response rates for your post.
- Publish Articles: share company updates, advertise an upcoming event, give your opinion on relevant industry trends and build your trusted authority by publishing relevant content for your ideal audience.
- Create newsletters: Create a themed newsletter that will allow your Audience to subscribe and receive updates on a weekly, fortnightly, or monthly basis. Newsletters are a great way to build a community and share with your audience company updates, new trends, upcoming events, and new products.
Here is one of my recent newsletters
Customise your Profile URL
Take the time to customise your profile URL. Ideally, you would use your name but sometimes it could be taken so you will need to experiment and come up with something else relevant.
Here is my URL for reference: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adamhoulahan/
Keep in mind that you can only change your URL once every 30 days, so make sure you are 100% committed to the URL you’re about to submit since you’ll be stuck with it for at least a month.
LinkedIn is your professional calling card, make sure not to comment, share, or publish anything that you would not say to a client or face to face or on a phone call. Keep your posts and comments positive, on brand, and make sure it solves a problem and provides value to your audience.
Building your personal brand is an ongoing process, make sure you differentiate yourself from your competitors, be genuine, and unique and ultimately put your own flavour on everything you do.
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