People buy from people they know and trust. When you need a service or product, which one comes to mind first? This is the power of a personal brand. If done right, you can become a consultant on a specific topic. When others hear your name, they say, “Oh, that’s ____ person.” People often associate my name with LinkedIn. But it was not always so. So what can you do to build and grow your personal brand on LinkedIn? Let’s dive into some tips.
Table of Contents
Optimize your profile
Your LinkedIn profile acts as your personal landing page. It tells potential clients, investors, employers, and employees what you do and why they should buy from you, invest in you, hire you, or work for you. This is the first thing you need to start with when building a personal brand, since everything else you do will encourage people to view your profile.
Adding a professional headshot and custom cover photo is a great way to start optimizing your profile as it’s the first thing people look at when they look at your profile. The next step is to view the header. This is the text that appears right below your photo on your profile. It also appears next to your face and name when you are composing posts or commenting on posts. Going beyond your Company Statement to include keywords and value propositions will increase the credibility and searchability of your profile and help others know how they can help you and/or how you you can help them.
Further, writing an informative “About” section can shed light on your personal and professional journey, not just the roles you have worked in and the companies you have worked for. This is a great place to talk about how you got to where you are today, what you are doing right now, and what lies ahead for you in the future.
Finally, asking colleagues, executives, and clients to write you a three-line LinkedIn recommendation will further increase the credibility of your profile. It’s also free advertising for them as others will see their name, picture and title on your profile.
Give, Give, Give
Now that your profile looks presentable, you need to start adding value to the LinkedIn community. Creation of educational content about the challenges you’ve overcome, the things you’ve learned, and tips for being successful in your industry—great ways to showcase your knowledge while helping others on their journey.
If you’re not ready to start sharing your own tips, you can share content from others. Whether you’re sharing a screenshot of a tweet and adding a few lines of your thoughts, or sharing an article with some industry trends and your key takeaways, you can still add value to your network without having to create original content from scratch.
It is important to remember that most of your content should be educational, and a small amount should be promotional. It’s okay to share customer testimonials or case studies across multiple posts. Just make sure most of your posts are not promotional.
Go beyond content
While creating content is an easy way to grab attention, if you don’t have a lot of followers, few people will see your posts. This is where the involvement begins. You can use the LinkedIn search bar to find posts related to your industry or keywords that interest you. You can then go and comment on those posts to add your thoughts to the conversation. Every time you comment, your name, title and profile picture will appear in the comments section. Other people who like and comment on the post can see what you had to say and go to your profile to learn more about you, or follow you to see more of your content. It also shows potential clients that you are available if they want to contact you.
Your feed can fill up quickly and you may miss out on content from important people. Turning on the notification bell on someone’s profile will notify you when they post so you don’t miss their posts. It’s also a great way to be one of the first to respond to your post so that others see your comment when they view your post. quote,
It doesn’t always involve producing more content; but rather create more value with the content you produce. — Bill, Founder Kernel.
Stay Consistent
Your personal brand will not grow overnight. Average, need eight touches with the prospect before they buy from you. The same goes for building a personal brand and earning the trust of other LinkedIn users. With only 1% of LinkedIn content creators and 9% engaged, 90% of users just scroll and hide. Don’t be discouraged if you don’t see a lot of engagement in your posts. Lurkers quietly soak up what you have to say. Eventually, you will see those incoming leads begin to slide into your inbox.
Final Thoughts
Growing my personal brand on LinkedIn has been one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. I hope this article has given you some tips and inspiration to start growing your personal brand.
