Thursday, August 1, 2013

How to Write a KILLER LinkedIn Profile...and 18 Mistakes to Avoid by Brenda Berstein

At work, we are currently updating our resources on using LinkedIn and shaping our LinkedIn policy. This is one of the books on my reading list on that topic. I originally read about this book in this article from Forbes and decided to pick it up for research, even though we can't use it in our library (available as Kindle book only).

How to Write a KILLER LinkedIn Profile describes eighteen steps, as well as some bonus tips, that you can use to build your LinkedIn profile and increase your likelihood of being found in LinkedIn searches--though the tips could also have an impact on your Google visibility, depending on your LinkedIn privacy settings. Overall, I thought the tips were useful and straightforward and contained enough screen captures that a LinkedIn newbie would be able to find where in the LinkedIn profile the author was directing them to update.

However, this is not a basic book so this is not LinkedIn from the Beginning--and it doesn't have to be. This is written for the LinkedIn user who has a profile but who hasn't made the most efficient use of their content or who hasn't thought about how best to profile their content on and select keywords for LinkedIn. And not everyone is going to agree with all of the tips, such as the recommendation to get more than 500 connections--I accept her reasoning, that the more connections you have, the more likely you are to appear in internal searches in LinkedIn--but I can see some of my hesitant colleagues or clients balk at that. And you don't have to use all of her suggestions to improve your profile overall--making better use of the Summary field and updating at least once a week so your contacts don't forget about you could make an improvement on what you get out of LinkedIn.

I would recommend this one to advisors who have been asked to comment on LinkedIn profiles, but who aren't sure how people make an impact on LinkedIn, coupled with Jason Alba's I'm on LinkedIn...Now What? if you have only cursory LinkedIn experience.