5 Powerful LinkedIn Hacks to Reboot Your Profile
Is it time for a LinkedIn profile reboot? It’s not as hard as you might think! 🤔 New opportunities to attract.
Sales funnel to fill. Career evolutions to pursue. What's the one thing they have in common? They all start with your LinkedIn profile.
🎯 No matter what your professional goals are for this season, they all somehow tie back to your LinkedIn profile.
Your LinkedIn profile is the face of your personal brand, your career, and your business on LinkedIn. If it's not aligned with your current professional or business objectives, it's time for a refresh.
In this episode of Mondays with Mindi, we discuss five powerful profile hacks for those who are just getting started on LinkedIn or who are looking to "refresh" their profiles.
Come ready to take notes because we will get actionable, and you will be ready to reboot that profile for your next chapter right alongside yours truly!
Is it the right TIME to update your profile?
I don’t know about you, but I myself have changed a LOT in the last year.
One year ago, I was sitting in a classroom at Indiana University Northwest alongside kids at least 15 years younger than me. When asked what I wanted to be when I grew up, I said I was on the premed track to become a psychiatrist, as I am very passionate about mental health.
I took notes. I led group projects. I actually did real math. I learned Chemistry for the first time. I survived 3-hour labs. Quizzes. Tests. Papers. All of the things.
And, I loved it. Every single minute of it… except for that one writing assignment where I was told I plagiarized someone else’s work when I used a template I created more than 10 years ago as the base of my writing assignment.
Can you plagiarize yourself? Yes, these days, you most certainly can when you write for a living.
So what happened? Nearly two years into my non-traditional student experience, I was at a crossroads in my personal life.
Going back to school empowered me in ways I had not anticipated. It did not lead to a degree -- it led to a divorce after nearly 12 years of marriage.
Hard? You better believe it. But, it has been one of the most impactful experiences of my life.
So, yes, you will see that my last name has changed on LinkedIn to my maiden name.
When I initially changed my last name, one of my longstanding clients sent me a congratulatory message for the wedding! It was a comical moment, as I said it was actually the opposite… but still a moment worth celebrating.
Which brings me to our topic today of personal branding and rebranding. When you go through something that changes your entire trajectory, how do you regroup to rebrand yourself?
...but do you REALLY need to refresh?
Maybe you created your LinkedIn profile once already - like me - and that was good enough back then. Thing is that LinkedIn continues to change and evolve over time, and so do you!
In the span of one year, I went from married full-time premed student to reinvigorated single mom with a renewed appreciation for her business. That’s a BIG change.
Does my LinkedIn profile fully reflect this change? Not yet.
I’m going through this reinvention right alongside you. Not one of us has this all figure out yet, and that’s okay.
The key is first recognizing that it’s time for that refresh. If it’s been at least a year since you last refreshed your LinkedIn profile, than you are due.
I’m raising my hand here -- I need one, too!
When you know how to “work” your LinkedIn profile, your personal brand can shine on LinkedIn - and for many of us, the good news that it’s often the ONLY channel we really need.
How to Get Your LinkedIn Profile DONE
Okay, so we have gone through a big enough change in the last 12 months that we desperately need a LinkedIn profile refresh.
But, now we’ve got to make time to get it done. This is when our inner resistance kicks into gear!
What if instead of looking at your LinkedIn profile as an “I have to update it,” you decided to value your LinkedIn profile as the catalyst for your next chapter of your career?
It has ALL the sections you need to build out your brand and get clear on your experience, your story, to showcase your portfolio of work, to link people elsewhere, to share content that engages, to attract the right people when they’re in the mindset to do business.
It’s totally counterintuitive to what we think.
We like to make things more complicated and think that a website designer or personal branding consultant who has the most gorgeous website and logo is the answer.
I’m not saying those things are meaningless, but I am saying that you can make a TON of progress with your career, your brand, your presence online if you get laser-focused on your LinkedIn profile FIRST before worrying about other channels.
If you’ve been looking for a way to simplify your efforts and maximize your return on investment…
You don’t have to wait.
You can start… right now!
And, if you decide NOT to prioritize your LinkedIn profile, guess what? You’re going to waste weeks, months, or years trying to “get it right” when a “messy first draft” using the LinkedIn profile structure can save you ALL that time and be sure that you can actually be found online.
Go ahead. Waste time on a pretty brand. Watch how the people starting out at the same time as you do skyrocket ahead with their business while you still feel stuck. How the heck are they doing it? They don’t even have a logo or brand colors?
Well, I’ll tell you a secret. They know the power of their LinkedIn profile, and they’re getting results. They don’t NEED anything else right now. They then took enough time to reboot their profile. And, you may only need 30-60 minutes to get it done!
The 5 Most Important Sections on Your LinkedIn Profile
What’s so special about your LinkedIn profile, and where can you use the same elements on other social media channels?
1️⃣ No-frills LinkedIn Headline
If you’ve followed any of my videos or content, you’ve likely heard me talk about the headline as your first impression.
You may not get it right the first time, but you can always change this down the road.
What to do: Focus on the formula of - Who You Are + Whom You Help + How You Help + Results You Generate
Where can you repurpose this? For all of your other bios (think Facebook, X, Instagram, YouTube, etc) online - rework the text and use the exact same messaging to reinforce your personal brand elsewhere.
2️⃣ Freshened-up LinkedIn Featured
This section can double as your portfolio of work, especially if you are looking to get hired or need a place to visually showcase what you’ve been working on all these years. It’s easy to “mix it up” here and add some LinkedIn posts to showcase your credibility.
Keep this section fresh, and you’ll be able to highlight these same pieces of content elsewhere. You can link and upload just about anything here!
Where can you repurpose this? Add to a YouTube channel, to an Instagram account, to a Facebook Page, share in various social media channels.
3️⃣ Killer LinkedIn Recommendations
When you have strong recommendations online, people are more likely to trust you. It’s tough to ask for a testimonial via email and try to get people to give one to you, but what if you gave the person a recommendation first on LinkedIn and then nudged them to reciprocate?
Imagine how many testimonials you could collect here following this formula alone! No need for people to look at a “testimonials” page on a website to get a sense of your work - just scroll through your profile.
Where can you repurpose this? Add these testimonials anywhere where you need them! I’ve added them to my personal website and use them on my sales pages.
4️⃣ “There-to-Here” About You
If you don’t have one yet, or if it’s just a copy from a bio or executive summary on a resume, you need to get this section dialed in. You’d be surprised how many people don’t have one at all!
This is something I teach line-by-line as part of The LinkedIn Accelerator, because it’s your story and how you got from there to here. It shows your personality and exactly how you can help your target audience.
Where can you repurpose this? Add it to your About Page on your website or anywhere where you need a long, storytelling bio. There are going to be a lot of paragraphs you can also excerpt and reference for a shorter bio and in future copy.
5️⃣ Heavy-Lifting Work Experiences
There are very few places online where you can easily get a snapshot of where someone worked professionally - and many people don’t list this anywhere else online. Whenever I want to see someone’s work history, I look up their LinkedIn profile.
Your Experience section can double as an always-up-to-date resume. Do you ever update that Word Doc resume that is buried on your desktop somewhere? Probably not unless you see a great job opportunity.
Where can you repurpose this? When crafting a professional bio or executive summary, it helps to have a very clear timeline. If updated consistently, you’ll always have a resume on-hand that you can export on a moment’s notice to anyone who asks. You never know when you’ll need one!
These are ONLY five of the ways that you can reboot your profile to improve your personal brand, and there are about another half dozen that I teach within The LinkedIn Accelerator!
The key is to value your LinkedIn profile as the starting point for your personal brand versus “getting around to it” later when you feel urgent that you need it… yesterday!
I challenge you today to start seeing your LinkedIn profile from a different perspective and take about 30 minutes to refresh it. LinkedIn is not “one of the many” that needs to be worked on -- it’s THE ONE to work on first, and let it inform all of the other elements of your personal brand.
Once you get that profile looking rock solid, you’ll be able to start building your network and not be afraid to put yourself out there to attract those opportunities and new connections.
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If you’re looking for that extra edge to get you started on the right path with your profile, check out my FREE LinkedIn profile mini-training video series to help you dial in the most important sections of your LinkedIn profile to kickstart your personal brand today. Comment below with “I want the training!” I can then send you the direct link.👇
