May 18, 2011 49 Comments

Power Up Your LinkedIN Profile

LinkedIn's Secret Power Duo

If you want to power up your LinkedIN profile, there’s a one-two punch that matters in getting the most out of the software. If you want to make that platform work for you, do these two things once a week:

  1. Edit your profile.
  2. Write 5 recommendations.

Edit Your Profile

I promise that you haven’t probably written your LinkedIn profile for your future. I bet you haven’t made LinkedIn work for you. Those two things matter. Is your profile concise? Does it tell people what you want to do with them? Mine doesn’t right now. I just looked in and it’s crappy. I have to update it. Do the same with yours.

Write 5 Recommendations

First off, only write recommendations if you can honestly vouch for the person you’re writing it for, and only if you want your endorsement to reflect on who YOU are, too. Want some more LinkedIn recommendation tips?

Second, write recommendations that are punchy, powerful, dynamic, and sell the person you’re hoping to recommend. If it’s a tepid recommendation, don’t bother.

And More

There are plenty of other ways to use LinkedIn effectively, and you’ll figure them out.

But for now, put that one-two punch up on your calendar every week. Edit your profile every week. Write five recommendations every week. Running out of people to recommend? Then you’re not connecting enough.

Go forth.

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  • http://www.skinnable.com/ mahjong

    Linked-in is a new Social Networking Site and Linked-in is not a very Popular Site, But, In Short Time, It Will be a become Popular Site same as Face-book or Twitter site.

  • http://www.kooldesignmaker.com custom logo design

    Linkedin is a website of professionals and exceutives not for the all the users. so very informative tips you discussed here and how to use.
    Thanks.

  • http://www.margieclayman.com Marjorie Clayman

    Hmm, 5 recommendations written a week is a pretty aggressive goal if you are using LinkedIn for prospecting in a specific industry.

    When you are prospecting, you are first filtering your search results based on industry, maybe size of company, maybe geography, and maybe even the position titles of the people you want to contact. Once you connect with those people, you can’t really write recommendations for them because you are hoping to work with them but haven’t yet.

    Given those factors, the 5 recommendations a week would be pretty tough. In fact, it might be hard to create solid connections with 5 people a week, depending on what you are doing.

    I have also found that the idea that recommendations are “give to get’ is not a known entity for everyone, and it can also create some uncomfortable situations. If someone recommends you and you’ve never worked together, do you return the recommendation out of courtesy or do you explain to them that you believe you can only recommend people you’ve actually worked with?

    It can be a tricky world over there in LinkedIn Land!

    • http://rickmanelius.com Rick Manelius

      I agree. I have enough trouble writing 5 posts, must less 5 recommendations! Also, the business I’m in doesn’t require me to network that strongly anyway. Still, this is pretty insightful for that if/when moment.

      Marjorie. Thanks for the additional ideas and thoughts. I would probably be one to reciprocate with a recommendation out of courtesy. But I imagine that can become difficult to keep up with as one becomes popular (fingers crossed!)

    • http://raulcolon.net Raul Colon

       Margie, 

      I do agree but I have read many Chris posts about recommendations and he does make the disclaimer of making sure you worked with the person. 

      Giving recommendations can be kind of tricky if you are in an organization. If you work on your own and run your own shop I think you can write recommendations based on Chris’s Advice. 

      Now maybe if you have as many contacts as Chris on LinkedIn it might be the 5 recommendations a week rule. 

      Maybe 1 a week or a month might be a fit for lower numbers. 

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  • http://ClimbingEveryMountain.com Mary E. Ulrich

    “Go forth”–Chris, you crack me up. 

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  • Anonymous

    Here’s an editing tip – export your profile using the PDF button below your public profile URL at the bottom of the blue box. Convert to Word and edit that way, pasting back into the platform. You will see all sorts of errors you didn’t see when it was inside the platform.

    • http://raulcolon.net Raul Colon

       Carla, 

      Great Tip. I had downloaded it to PDF to give to someone as a quick fix so they could see my profile (I also send a Link)

      I had not thought about editing it on Word or for review purposes

    • http://www.fabricecalando.com Fabrice Calando

       That’s a great tip Carla. Thanks!

  • http://raulcolon.net Raul Colon

     I keep on leaving it as a task to get done and I never get to it. I do think I need to be more concise on my LinkedIn Profile. 

    As for the recommendations I think each person should create a Ratio on how many people to recommend based on the number of contacts. I get what you are saying and you opened my eyes on many people I can recommend and I am missing a great opportunity to do so but it might not add up to 5 people a week. 

    Great Advice once again! Can wait to work with you more so I can get make sure that I can recommend you! LOL have a good one Chris! 

  • http://twitter.com/phillyrealty Christopher Somers

    Chris - Great recommendations here.  Everyone talks about Facebook and Twitter and LinkedIn gets left behind.  Same with us and we forget about it sometimes.  This is a super reminder to get busy ! 

  • http://www.fabricecalando.com Fabrice Calando

    A few years ago I started dedicating some of my time to tweaking my LinkedIn profile and the results have been great! Awesome job opportunities and some business inquiries ensued (my involvement with certain groups probably helped as well). Working on your Summary and each job description is definitely worth it. When I update them, I try to write in a “What can I do for you” frame of mind and try to add in some interesting keywords.

    Now to write more recommendations :)

    Thanks for the great post Chris!

  • Emma Tiebens

    Hi Chris!

    Wow! Checking back into Linked-In was one of the things in my “to-do” list this week… I have had my account set up for 4 years now, waaaay before Facebook but it definitely needs some TLC.   I even purchased books on how to engage there but this post truly simplified it for me and empowered me to get in there and start using it more effectively…

    Thanks for always being sensitive to what we need…  Take care…

  • Anonymous

    Oh BTW, I see that you have a banner on American Express Forum… I am getting ready to engage there too! I didn’t know about them until last week… See?  You’re ALWAYS many steps ahead!  ;)

  • Julie Squires

    Chris, the master at LinkedIn profile writing and monetization strategy is JD Gershbein at Owlish Communications and @JDgershbein; check him out. (Disclosure: Owlish is one of our joint venture partners).  Thanks and best, Julie

  • http://www.internetmarketingsource.net Sam Beamond

    Question for you, Chris. Slightly off topic, with regard to your Blog Topics discussion on FaceBook. What made you determine to host the discussion there versus a LinkedIn Group? Were you of the mindset that bloggers are more “FaceBookers” that LinkedIn users? Interested to here your take. Thanks

  • http://www.internetmarketingsource.net Sam Beamond

    Question for you, Chris. Slightly off topic, with regard to your Blog Topics discussion on FaceBook. What made you determine to host the discussion there versus a LinkedIn Group? Were you of the mindset that bloggers are more “FaceBookers” that LinkedIn users? Interested to here your take. Thanks

  • http://www.internetmarketingsource.net Sam Beamond

    Question for you, Chris. Slightly off topic, with regard to your Blog Topics discussion on FaceBook. What made you determine to host the discussion there versus a LinkedIn Group? Were you of the mindset that bloggers are more “FaceBookers” that LinkedIn users? Interested to here your take. Thanks

  • http://www.simplexstudios.com John Bunka

     Great point on the recommendations, either do it right or don’t do it at all!

  • http://www.simplexstudios.com John Bunka

     Great point on the recommendations, either do it right or don’t do it at all!

  • http://www.simplexstudios.com John Bunka

     Great point on the recommendations, either do it right or don’t do it at all!

  • http://www.mattmacdonald.ca Matthew MacDonald

    I just wrote a post on LinkedIn regarding their recent IPO news.  It’s an interesting social media platform, and judging from most of these responses…it truly doesn’t have the “play” power that the daily (or hourly) facebook/twitter check-ins have!

    Love the blog.  I’ve added you to my RSS subscriptions.

  • http://twitter.com/dbvickery Brian Vickery

     I’ve been thinking of blogging some LinkedIn optimization tips I gave my employees a while back. The two things you mention here are key, and there are several other tweaks to really catch people’s eye as well as those crawlers. At one point, I had my LinkedIn profile popping into the 2nd place in a Google search for Denver Business Objects…I’ve fallen off recently, so I need to get back to refreshing my content and practicing what I preach ;)

    Thanks for the blog, Chris.

  • http://www.sociallyengagedmarketing.com CharityHisle

    I left this on your FB page as well: I wish that LinkedIn would revamp their account settings. Sometimes there is only one person that you DON’T want to view your profile, updates, answers and group memberships. I have a LinkedIn stalker, but resetting my account settings would block too many people. It’s time LinkedIn made a few updates to allow blocking individuals.

  • Kelly Lester

    Thanks for this Chris!! I just went in and really upped the personalization factor on my profile, changing it from a boring list to a get to know me opp. I’m sure to continue tweaking thanks to your inspiration. LOL – still not sure what I’m doing with LinkedIn or even how it all really works, but at least my profile is now, well, “me”.

  • Leslielempka.com

    Great content…loved the idea about changing up my personal profile!  I believe mine is definitely overdue!

  • Leslielempka.com

    Great content…loved the idea about changing up my personal profile!  I believe mine is definitely overdue!

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    Interesting post.

  • Jdgershbein

    Very timely post, Chris.

    With so many more people taking that LinkedIn leap of faith (approximately 15 million new users in the last 120 days, pushing the total to 100+ million users), it behooves one to conscientiously establish his/her LinkedIn profile as a digital marketing hub and platform on which to be researched.

    The beauty of LinkedIn is its flexibility and elasticity in accommodating all the content we can throw at it, and as you so deftly hint, our LinkedIn profile content should pace with our every reinvention.

  • http://mimosaplanet.com James M Cooper

    “Write five recommendations every week. Running out of people to recommend?  Then you’re not connected enough.”  – Nice! Kind of slapped me in the face. Excellent. Depth of connection is everything, I can recommend way more people than I have currently… but why haven’t I done so already? This is a great way to go!
    Cheers,
    James

  • http://www.willfranco.com/ Will Franco aka Flywheel

     LinkedIn is a powerful tool. The usability could be improved, they have become feature rich and usability poor.

  • http://salvadorstabler.com salstabler

     Nice and short advice Chris, but to write 5 recommendations a week doesn’t seem natural. If I had that many people to recommend each week I think it would come across as BS. Especially since the average person on Linkedin barely even knows the people they are connected to. Recommendations should come from quality sources of people who have worked with you or have seen your work. So how do I get you to recommend me and join my network on linkedin?

  • http://twitter.com/ChaseBC85 Chase Cornett

    Linkedin really is such a powerful network. I gave my profile a drastic overhaul a couple weeks ago after starting a new public relations job in Salt Lake City. I thought it was a pretty significant improvement. 

    However, I do have a concern- since most of my connections I know by limited business association and not personally,how do I write a compelling recommendation? It seems the only connections I havet that I would write a recommendation for are close friends of mine and an endorsement from me would almost seem narcissistic. 

  • http://www.online-business-virtual-assistant.com/ Virtual Business Assistant

    Linkedin is more useful for SEO and for building more
    credibility. Google and Bing can easily index your business information in
    Linkedin . The extent to which you can leverage your Linkedin profile depends
    on how much your profile is keyword optimized. Thanks for the share and will add the recommendations.

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  • http://www.thewritedesignco.com/ BillionDollarBlogger

    Who knew that 2 days after that article was written that LinkedIn would blow up in the news. If we haven’t updated our profile, I think now is a good time to go. All the attention is on LinkedIn these days and we just don’t know what could happen!

  • Dara

    Nice verbage Chris. The one inch punch is my fav in Martial Arts. Good tips! I am running out of people to reccommend. Practicly bleedling out of my eyes reccomending folks.

    Kind Regards

    Dara  

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  • http://blogctech.com Communitech

    Great recommendations, I’ve been looking for something like this. 

  • http://twitter.com/rickbanas Rick Banas

    I have found starting and participating in Group discussions on LinkedIn to be increasingly beneficial.

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  • http://www.logodesigngenius.com/ Logo Designer

    Linkedin is a website of professionals and executives and all the users. Linkedin website is so unique platform for users to judge the users.

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  • http://www.printingfairy.com/labels-printing/domed-labels/ domed labels

    Usually people don’t give importance to their profiles on social media sites which is very effective for your business point of view. Linkedin has great influence in social media sites therefore every social media lover should concentrate on linkedin profile according to your points.

  • Richard_williams1989

    These social networks allow communication and
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