For many professionals, LinkedIn is a dream come true. It allows you to connect to colleagues in similar roles, apply for new positions, and recruit new candidates. If you use your LinkedIn profile to conduct business-to-business (or B2B) marketing, there are some simple steps you should take to ensure that you appear in as many searches as possible. If you manage a team that will be prospecting and recruiting through LinkedIn, this will be extremely helpful for them as well.
Provide Great Profile Pics
Obviously, a great looking profile pic elevates any LinkedIn profile. Any company with more than a handful of employees should have a relationship with a solid photographer who can take headshots. Ask them to stage them with great lighting, and in front of a recognizable company logo if possible and practical.
Insist on Using Certain SEO Keywords
Your employees’ LinkedIn Profiles can help your company’s SEO rankings. This is easily done by researching hot terms or short phrases that drive people searching for your business’ product or service to your websites. Tell your staff to include them in their LinkedIn profile biography in an organic and conversational way. While it may be tempting to write out a boilerplate template for employees, this is a bad idea. You risk someone simply copying and pasting it, and if followers on LinkedIn see duplicate bios, it will reflect badly on both them and your company. The company will seem like a dictatorship that insists on uniformity, and/or the employee will seem unoriginal or lazy.
Write a Great Headline
Marketing is all about “cutting through the clutter,” and what is a LinkedIn profile if not a marketing opportunity for an employee? Your headline should be attention-getting and active. How far you can push this may be dependent on your industry but consider “SALES MAGICIAN” rather than “TRUSTED ACCOUNT EXECUTIVE,” or “RETAIL GURU” rather than “EXPERIENCED SALES ASSOCIATE.” If you can strike a good balance between fun, creative, and still accurate and appropriate, you’ll stand out.
Create a Customized URL
Finally, it’s worth the short investment of time and effort to create a custom URL that can be remembered, copied, and shared. This is easily done in the settings on your profile’s summary page. Using your first and last name is your best bet.
LinkedIn is a great tool for employees to connect and network. It can also benefit the companies they work for if properly optimized.
