Category Archives: Optimise your Profile

LinkedIn Public Profile: how to use & optimise

September 10, 2019 by ,

When we talk about editing or optimising our profile on LinkedIn, most of the time we’re thinking about our Personal Profile. And rightly so, it is the central element of our activity on LinkedIn.

Our Personal Profile is where we add our details, experience, summary and all of the information that’s relevant about us and what we do. This is essentially our representation on LinkedIn – you could almost call it your avatar or your sales & marketing document, Business card on steroids or even your CV depending on what you are using LinkedIn for.

However, when you create your profile on LinkedIn, the system automatically creates what is essentially a mirror image of it called your Public Profile. It is this page that is then indexed by the external search engines such as Google or Bing, and then appears in the search results out on the web. You can see what LinkedIn displays and make any changes required by accessing the Public Profile from the button in the top right hand corner of your main Personal Profile page.

At first sight, this Public Profile may seem unimportant in comparison, but do bear in mind that while your main profile can be viewed by the 635 million members of LinkedIn, your Public Profile is visible to anyone around the world with access to the Internet!

More than that, given the way that LinkedIn panders to Google and its ranking algorithm, your public profile on LinkedIn is likely to appear towards the top of the 1st page as well when you search for your name! (more…)

Article Categories: Optimise your Profile
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Make sure you are not hidden

June 24, 2019 by ,

Are you unwittingly hiding your photo? Here’s a 2 minute check for you to make sure you’re not.

Over the past month this has been the case for nearly 20 people in the classes I’ve run who thought their photo was there for all to see, so I thought I’d share this with you.

Although we can see our photo, sometimes settings get changed and so people outside our 1st degree connections cannot. Clearly this is not good as:

► you lose impact and the chance to make a good 1st impression
► it gives the wrong impression, what are you hiding?
► it can make people more wary of connecting with you, reducing opportunities.

Here is a 2 minute check to see who can see your photo and make sure that you are not a grey image (more…)

Article Categories: LinkedIn Advice, LinkedIn Tips, Optimise your Profile, Using LinkedIn
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Dress Appropriately – LinkedIn Advent Calendar (Day 2)

December 2, 2018 by ,



In the real world, when we meet someone face to face but before we have the opportunity to speak, they are already starting to build a mental image and first impression of us. They create a back story, imagine what we sound like and even how the conversation would start. It’s instant, it’s automatic & it’s based on what they see.

The same thing happens on LinkedIn … except there, all of this is conjured up by and based on our Profile.

In particular, the top part of our Profile – the Introduction Card – serves exactly that purpose and creates this first impression. Above all, it has two very visual parts that we need to use to influence and, to an extent, direct that first impression.

Those elements are the banner & our photo.

Let’s take the banner first. This is “prime real estate” (more…)

Article Categories: LinkedIn Advice, LinkedIn Tips, New LinkedIn Profile, Optimise your Profile
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10 LinkedIn Tips and Advice revisited

August 27, 2018 by ,

Over the past few weeks, I have sent out a series of LinkedIn hints and tips in infographic form relating to elements on the site that I have been asked about, that I have seen have been causing issues or things that have changed and were worthy of a mention.

I have decided to bring those together in a single post to save you having to search them out on my LinkedIn feed in an effort to be extra helpful .. oh, and with an additional explanation below each one in case the image does tell you the whole story!

Hope you enjoy and do feel free to share!

1. Don’t send your message before you want to

When you go to your Messenger system, there are occasions when, quite naturally, you might want to start a new paragraph and have hit the key to go to a new line in the message and yet found that the message instead has been sent. Annoying!

That is unfortunately the default format on LinkedIn. However, if you go to the Messanger area then just next to the “Send” button, you will see three dots which allows you to turn that off and allow you to format your message as you wish. (more…)

Article Categories: LinkedIn Advice, LinkedIn Marketing, LinkedIn Tips, Optimise your Profile
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New LinkedIn Profile changes – how to benefit from them!

April 5, 2018 by ,

There are some layout changes to the Personal Profile page which are being rolled out at the moment on LinkedIn – this is following a similar phase to other roll outs with a beta phase coming first and then extended across the network.

You may not yet have it but forewarned is forearmed so here are the changes I’ve noticed and some recommendations for 4 key elements where the emphasis has shifted.

[I’ve also highlighted some Points To Note (PTN) that I feel warrant a special mention – forgive me the use of yet another acronym but NB didn’t really seem to cut it anymore.]

What’s changing?

Well, for those of us who are yet to receive the new format, here are the two side by side: (more…)

Article Categories: Advanced LinkedIn, LinkedIn Site Changes, LinkedIn Tips, LinkedIn Updates, New LinkedIn Profile, Optimise your Profile, Using LinkedIn
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LinkedIn Personal Profile: easier ways to add Rich Media

April 6, 2015 by ,

Rich Media on LinkedInOne key aspect that can really make your Personal Profile stand out is your ability to take it beyond a simple text overview of the skills and expertise and add what LinkedIn has come to call Rich Media, that is to say a selection of video, images, presentations and documents designed to help bring your profile to life and use it as a Content Marketing opportunity par excellence.

Our ability to do this was added in at the end of 2012 and yet still only a small percentage of people have taken the opportunity it offers – why is this you may well ask? Well, like so many things on LinkedIn, a major issue is that it has never been particularly obvious that the functionality existed (unless you saw it on someone else’s page), other people thought it was only on offer to Premium account holders and even for those who recognised the benefits, they weren’t sure how to go about it.

Well, worry no longer! It is still there, it is available to everyone and it is now even easier to actually add the media themselves. (more…)

Article Categories: Content Marketing, LinkedIn Updates, Optimise your Profile
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