In today’s world, “if you aren’t online, you don’t exist!” As harsh as this may sound, one can’t deny how true it is. Think about it: when you meet someone for the first time and decide to establish a relationship with him/her or extend your conversation past the physical meeting, don’t you ask for an email address, Instagram handle, and, ideally, a LinkedIn profile? This is my usual habit to be honest!
But wait a minute; being online does not only mean having an email account, a social media page or even a website. It also means being active on these handles. In our days, it is trusted that any person should establish their own personal brand online and have a unique presence, regardless whether they are a so-called influencer, an employee or entrepreneur. It is essential because it is your digital identity. It will allow you to better attract employers, customers and business opportunities.
One of my favorite platforms that I capitalize my presence on is LinkedIn. To be honest, I am a huge fan of this platform and of its powerful outreach! Yesterday was so insightful for me, we held a session at Launch DXB with Microsoft for Startups and LinkedIn, where we invited Sally Ballout - Talent Solutions and Key Accounts Director at LinkedIn, and Nelio Leone - CEO & Founder of Urban Monks for a webinar fully dedicated to optimizing one’s profile on the platform and to learning key insights to ace presence there.
In case you are an active user of LinkedIn, just like me, and would like to know how to optimize your own profile, check out the below summary and key takeaways I captured from the webinar.
. “No matter where you are in your journey, you have a story to tell!” - Sally Ballout. People buy into you and your own story, not only into your startup, the products or services you offer. Your audience and network want to hear your story, how did your journey start, why and what lead to your company’s formation? For this, you need to tell your story in your profile. Remember, your profile is NOT a resume or a CV! Instead, Sally defined it as a digital portfolio that represents you, your experiences and your skills. "Your profile grows with you and it always should!” - Sally Ballout.
. So on LinkedIn, make sure to have your personal elevator pitch in the summary section. There, share your most interesting, engaging, and dynamic lines. Keep on revisiting it and always ask yourself: why & what am I in it for? This will help you better steer your profile and presence. Sally also highlighted that skills are keywords recruiter and regular users use to find you. So give some time to reflect on your strong skillsets. Lastly, don't miss out on endorsements that also add up to these keywords.
. “Open for Business,” is a new feature launched from Dubai to the world by LinkedIn. It indicates what businesses you do, what services you offer, where you are located and wether these services can be offered remotely or not. A cool feature we all needed, didn't we?
These were the “theoretical" usages and best practices for LinkedIn. Now, let me share some practical advice shared by Nelio - the Growth Marketer.
. Traditional marketing is simply a process marketers follow; whereas growth marketing is about understanding the process and playing around it when there is no proper budget set in place. It is a T-shape process, where you should have a solid understanding of tools, analytics and data, and you should have cross-disciplinary skills. So, in case you aspire to become a growth marketer or to hire one, keep in mind that you should master growth and marketing tools. The more tools you know and master, the better you are!
. On LinkedIn, you can scale your presence as if you are running ads, but for free! - Nelio Leone
. For profile optimization & LinkedIn marketing, there are 4 main pillars: profile SEO, audience engineering, content virality, and sales pipeline automation. Nelio took us over viral content in specific for this webinar.
. For viral content, he advises to first define yourself CLEARLY; define your passion, expertise, and personality online. Second, define your audience, the more you niche down your audience, the better results you will arrive at. Third, define the context.
. Viral content blueprint by Nelio goes as following:
Teach | Tell your audience how to do something, share tutorial, break down the process, publish something cool you discovered, and be generous in sharing key learnings and article summaries.
Inspire | Share your favorite quotes, personal stories & human stories. Be authentic!
Entertain | It doesn't harm to add some funny videos, funny quotes or funny pictures from time to time.
. Always remember that not all content is created equal! Some are for thought-leadership, generating traffic or obtaining conversions!
. As you create your posts, focus on the first two lines. In those, build interest to get reader to press “read more.” As you draft it, highlight key bullet points & invite your readers to comment.
. Define your hashtags strategy along big, medium, and niche reach ones.
What do you think now? Isn’t it time to build your brand on LinkedIn?
If you wish to connect with me or the speakers, here are our LinkedIn handles:
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