People view your LinkedIn profile for your knowledge, experience and skills. You need to make sure though they actually stay on your profile long enough to read. You do this by (A) hitting the nail on the head with your first impression and (B) write in a tone that grabs them.
LINKEDIN PROFILE TIP: SHOW ME (DON’T TELL ME)
I can’t stress this enough in training and in blog posts. Don’t tell me what you are good at, show me! Let your experience and achievements do the talking. From your job title, I can guess most of your responsibilities, no need to write them down. Add your responsibilities as skills so people can endorse you. This validates your professionalism and they function as keywords.
BE TRUE TO YOURSELF AND YOUR WORK ENVIRONMENT
You have no control over who visits (and reads) your profile. Your readers are as diverse as they come, so there is no pleasing them all. How about pleasing the ones you like? The people you dream of working with as your next client/partner/employer? That is SO MUCH EASIER than it seems! Stay close to yourself. Don’t pretend. Don’t use formal language if that is not you. The closer you stay to the true you the more your profile resonates with the people you’d LOVE to work with. Easy as that!
HOW NOT TO lose YOUR PROFILE VISITOR
It is all very well to write a great LinkedIn Profile, but what if people don’t bother reading it? How do you keep them from visiting one of the other 500+ million members? You will need to make a killer first impression. As superficial as it sounds, your mugshot is the first go/no-go decision your reader makes.
Next up is your headline. It needs to state WHAT you do and WHO you do it for. This tells your reader if it is worth their time to continue reading. If you kept them intrigued so far it is time to add a summary. This is where you introduce yourself. What makes you tick, your personality, what makes you stand out from the next person?