6 Steps to a Better Marketable LinkedIn Profile

Overall, LinkedIn is the best social media platform for entrepreneurs, business owners, and professionals. Unfortunately, your LinkedIn profile may not be helping you to create those connections.

So let’s tune yours up with six simple steps:

Step 1. Revisit your goals
At its most basic level LinkedIn is about marketing: marketing your company or marketing yourself. But that focus probably got lost as you worked through the mechanics of completing your profile, and what started as a marketing effort turned into a resume completion task. Who you are isn’t as important as what you hope to accomplish, so think about your goals and convert your goals into keywords, because keywords are how people find you on LinkedIn.

But don’t just whip out the Google AdWords Keyword Tool and identify popular keywords. It’s useful but everyone uses it—and that means, for example, that every Web designer has shoehorned six- and seven-digit searches-per-month keywords like “build a website,” “website templates,” “designing a website,” and “webmaster” into their profile. It’s hard to stand out when you’re one of millions.

Go a step further and think about words that have meaning in your industry. Some are process-related; others are terms only used in your field; others might be names of equipment, products, software, or companies.

Use a keyword tool to find general terms that could attract a broader audience, and then dig deeper to target your niche by identifying keywords industry insiders might search for.

Then sense-check your keywords against your goals. If you’re a Web designer but you don’t provide training, the 7 million monthly Google searches for “how to Web design” don't matter.

Step 2. Layer in your keywords
The headline is a key factor in search results, so pick your most important keyword and make sure it appears in your headline. “Most important” doesn’t mean most searched, though; if you provide services to a highly targeted market the keyword in your headline should reflect that niche. Then work through the rest of your profile and replace some of the vague descriptions of skills, experience, and educational background with keywords. Your profile isn’t a term paper so don’t worry about a little repetition. A LinkedIn search scans for keywords, and once on the page, so do people.

Step 3. Strip out the clutter
If you’re the average person you changed jobs six or eight times before you reached age 30. That experience is only relevant when it relates to your current goals. Sift through your profile and weed out or streamline everything that doesn’t support your business or professional goals. If you’re currently a Web designer but were an accountant in a previous life, a comprehensive listing of your accounting background is distracting. Keep previous jobs in your work history, but limit each to job title, company, and a brief description of duties.

Step 4. Reintroduce your personality
Focusing on keywords and eliminating clutter is important, but in the process your individuality probably got lost. Now you can put it back and add a little enthusiasm and flair. Describing yourself as, “A process improvement consultant with a Six Sigma black belt,” is specific and targeted but also says nothing about you as a person—and doesn’t make me think, “Hey, she would be great to work with.”

Share why you love what you do in your profile. Share what you hope to accomplish. Describe companies you worked for or projects you completed. Share your best or worst experience. Keep your keywords in place, leave out what doesn’t support your goals, and then be yourself.

Keywords are important but are primarily just a way to help potential clients find you. No one hires keywords; they hire people.

Step 5. Take a hard look at your profile photo
Say someone follows you on Twitter. What’s the first thing you do? Check out their photo.

A photo is a little like a logo: On its own an awesome photo won’t win business, but a bad photo can definitely lose business.

Take a look at your current photo. Does it reflect who you are as a professional or does it reflect a hobby or outside interest? Does it look like a real estate agent’s headshot? A good photo flatters but doesn’t mislead. Eventually you’ll meet some of your customers in person and the inevitable disconnect between Photoshop and life will be jarring.

The goal is for your photo to reflect how you will look when you meet a customer, not how you looked at that killer party in Key West four years ago. The best profile photo isn’t necessarily your favorite photo. The best photo strikes a balance between professionalism and approachability, making you look good but also real.

Step 6. Get recommendations
Most of us can’t resist reading testimonials, even when we know those testimonials were probably solicited. Recommendations add color and depth to a LinkedIn profile, fleshing it out while avoiding any, “Oh jeez will this guy ever shut up about himself?” reactions. So ask for recommendations, and offer to provide recommendations before you’re asked.

The best way to build great connections is to always be the one who gives first.

5 ways to make the most out of your company's Facebook page

If you haven’t already integrated Facebook into your online marketing mix by creating a fan page, consider the most recent staggering Facebook statistics:

• More than 350 million users are active on Facebook
• 50% of active users log in on any given day
• The average user spends 55 minutes a day on Facebook
• More than 1.6 million active Facebook fan pages have been created

With numbers like these — plus the fact that Google is now using social content to help determine the ranking of web pages — it’s difficult to justify not creating a Facebook presence for your brand.

Take the guesswork of Facebook marketing, and follow these 5 tips for making the most of your fan page.

1. Keep Content Fresh
Give fans a reason to come back to your page frequently by adding fresh content on a regular basis. Keep in mind that consistently updating the page doesn’t require a significant amount of additional effort.

As part of your online marketing strategy, integrate your Facebook fan page with other social media channels to maximize results little extra effort:

• Automatically feed new blog posts to your Facebook wall
• Use a service like Ping.fm to update all of your social networks at once, including Facebook and Twitter
• Set up widgets for your YouTube channel and Flickr feed to automatically add videos and images to your Facebook fan page

2. Engage New Visitors
Facebook fan page walls can be an extremely valuable tool for communicating with customers and prospects. But for first-time visitors to fan pages, the wall can seem intimidating and exclusive. Imagine walking into a room where everyone knows one another by name and are talking about a subject you know next to nothing about.

Instead of sending new visitors directly to your fan page wall, send them to a more controlled, welcoming landing page where you can provide them with useful information about your brand, as well as a clear call to action to become a fan.

3. Promote a Contest Via Facebook
A great way to add value to a Facebook fan page is to offer users an incentive to become fans. Contests can serve as an enticing incentive.

Be aware, however, that new Facebook marketing guidelines announced in November require brands, marketers and advertisers to go through an approval process for all contests. The guidelines require contests to be handled through an embedded application rather than on the page’s wall, among other things.

4. Give Fans Something They Can’t Get Anywhere Else
Contests aren’t the only incentives companies can offer to grow their fan base. Any item of value can entice Facebook users to become fans, including:

• Free shipping for Facebook fans
• An exclusive product coupon for fans
• A weekly special promoted on the fan page

Sears – with 160,000+ fans – has been very successful at this approach. First-time visitors are immediately directed to an exclusive offer landing page. By becoming a fan, users are offered $10 in coupons.

Another approach to incentivize becoming a fan is to provide inside company information and breaking news on the fan page. Fans are more likely to remain faithful to your brand – and tell their friends – when they feel like an insider who has a stake in the company.

5. Encourage Interaction
The entire notion of social media is built upon interaction and two-way communication. Facebook fan pages have little to no chance of success if they aren’t interactive and engaging.

But it’s not enough to sit back and wait to the interaction to begin. Get the ball rolling by:

• Posting a question to solicit fans’ opinions
• Offering a poll that’s extremely simple to respond to
• Integrating existing Facebook applications such as games and quizzes
• Reposting relevant, interesting information from other Facebook users

Simply creating a fan page for the sake of “Well, everyone else is doing it,” isn’t going to land you results. Like with any other online marketing strategy, Facebook marketing efforts must be well planned and constantly reinforced. By doing so, you can start to tap into the vast network of active Facebook users.

The two crucial success factors for corporate blogs: Optimize and Socialize

Blogs are often rated one of the top content marketing tactics for attracting and engaging customers and eMarketer has reported blogs reach over 50% of the internet audience. But many companies fail to combine two of the most important tools for boosting relevant traffic and reach: Optimization for search engines and for social media.

Most marketers and bloggers understand the basics of a good corporate blog and the notion of search engine optimization but often focus more on keywords than the customers that are actually searching. Adding keywords to blog posts is a common SEO tactic but developing a blog content plan around both search keywords and social topics that represent what customers care about can result in content that is inherently more search, social and customer media friendly.

The Business of Optimizing Social Media
Social Media Optimization involves optimizing social content for topics of interest to both the brand and the communities they seek to engage. SMO also focuses on the ability for social communities to share links and media they find interesting. Links to content shared on social networks and media sites can drive direct traffic to blog content and serve as a signal that search engines use for ranking blog web pages.

Essentially, socialized and optimized blog content can drive traffic through search and those visitors can share that content through social channels, driving even more traffic. Social sharing can also impact better search visibility, providing more relevant visitors that are actively looking.

Search and Social Media Friendly
As Internet marketers have emphasized making websites search engine friendly over the past 10 years, the importance of making websites and blogs social media friendly is also important. Great blog content isn’t really great until it’s consumed and shared, so consider how your customers find information online that is most likely to inspire them to do what you want them to do.

A Better Corporate Blog Strategy
To get more out of the opportunity to improve online discovery of corporate blog content, here are a few key questions to ask for an “Optimize and Socialize” blog strategy:

• Who is the blog intended to influence? Prospects, customers, employees, industry analysts, reporters, bloggers.
• What content will your blog offer that will meet target audience needs?
• How will addressing those customer needs and telling the brand story manifest as a blog content plan?
• What search keywords and social topics are relevant to your target audience?
• Where does your blog content fit in the customer lifecycle of communication with the brand?
• If the blog content is properly optimized and socialized, how will it influence (directly or indirectly) measurable business outcomes?

Interest In Your Blog Is Related to Your Blog’s Interest in Readers
One of the reasons corporate blogs fail as being optimized and socialized, is that their content tends to be very brand-centric. Most corporate blog posts talk about the brand, it’s products and services without a lot of consideration for customer perspectives and language.

A self-centered corporate blogging approach tends to push ideas out, hoping to get a reaction in the form of search engine rankings, fans, friends and followers. Many SEO centric blogs share these characteristics.

The problem with a mostly brand content focus is that there usually isn’t as much sharing, engagement or direct influence on business outcomes because the content is all about the brand, vs. empathizing with customers and the language customers use.

To Be Great, Your Corporate Blog Must Participate
Conversely, a search and social optimized corporate blog develops and participates in social communities online, offline, internally and externally. To do that, blog editors need to figure out where the great ideas and stories are in the company.

All this said, it’s not enough simply to have an optimized and socialized blog content plan that aligns brand solutions and ideas with those of your target audience. To tap into a high quality stream of customer-centric content ideas for your corporate blog, it’s essential to engage relevant social communities. Ask them questions, crowdsource content ideas, give those who participate recognition and repeat.

By shining a light on the awesome within your community, you’ll provide the fuel of positive reinforcement to motivate fans and customers to partake in both content creation and promotion.

Walk the talk by telling your brand stories and those of your community. Lead by example and your community will start to tell your stories for you. And so will their friends, and their friends’ friends. That’s the benefit of optimizing your corporate blog beyond search to include social media, networks and communities.