When is the last time you updated your LinkedIn™ profile? It’s important for business owners to keep their profiles up-to-date so prospects, referral partners and joint venture partners can see whether it’s worthwhile to connect.
If you’re an employee, it’s also important to keep your profile updated, because in today’s economy, you never know when you’re going to be out of a job.
That was the fear of an old colleague of mine from my days at Nightly Business Report, who contacted me recently about updating her LinkedIn profile. Melissa Winton had a basic profile that essentially only contained a headline and her profile picture:
Research subject & keywords for LinkedIn profile
I interviewed Melissa so I could learn what she’d been up to since our days together at NBR, and I wanted to know what her objectives were for updating the LinkedIn profile. I learned Melissa has kept her hand in television, while also working for a financial investment firm. But her intention for the updated profile was to help her move back into journalism as a producer / writer / editor or into a managerial position with a news organization.
Once I finished our consultation and received a copy of Melissa’s current resume, I went to work. I researched other journalists on LinkedIn to see how they were positioning their profiles. Then, I performed keyword research so that I could include phrases in Melissa’s profile that would attract the interest of prospective employers.
Since most people access LinkedIn via the smartphone app, it’s important to pay attention to two key areas: your headline, and the beginning of your profile summary, since the app only displays the summary’s first two lines.
Once I completed all of my research, I was able to craft a new headline that highlighted Melissa’s current role at i2i TV, as well as her desired role with a news organization. And I wrote a new About section (the old “summary”), which you can see a portion of below in this screenshot from my phone:
Keep the needs of your prospect/employer in mind
The About section is designed to pique the interest of news directors who are looking for someone with Melissa’s skills. It focuses on solving the problems that news directors face today, and how Melissa is uniquely qualified to solve them! It also highlights the types of companies that she wants to work with, how she serves them and her specialties.
Given Melissa’s experience as a television news anchor, I searched YouTube for video of her that I could include in the About to demonstrate her expertise.
I also discovered an article Melissa had written about her experience as the anchor / producer / writer of Morning Business Report. I was able to add that resource to her About section as well.
The Experience section demonstrates that Melissa understand the urgent problem news directors face, and can provide a solution based on her current and past skills.
I’m grateful that Melissa entrusted her LinkedIn profile to me and look forward to hearing that she has secured a new job in the near future! Read the 5-star review she gave me.
If you need your LinkedIn profile updated, let’s talk! Schedule an appointment now.
