Think you should be doing more with your LinkedIn profile?
First let’s consider your audience.
Who’s actually going to look at your profile?
The 5 types of people looking at your LinkedIn profile today:
1. People you meet who are curious about you
You might hunt them down first, or they might find you first.
They will have these kinds of questions on their mind:
- Might it be useful to connect with this person?
- Would connecting with them be consistent with the image I’m trying to project? Do they fit smoothly into my network?
- Can I connect them to other people I know to make me look good?
2. Employers both past, present and future
They will have these kinds of questions on their mind:
- Past: What have they done since leaving here?
- All: Who are they connected to?
- All: What do they say about themselves?
- Future: Are there gaps in their employment history?
- Future: Do they bad-mouth x-bosses or workmates or workplaces?
- Future: Are they worth poaching?
3. Potential clients getting a feel for your experience and skills
They will have these kinds of questions on their mind:
- Can I be confident this person will get the job done?
- What else are they capable of that could be useful?
- How diluted is their range of services/experience?
- Do they specialise in what I need them for?
4. Salespeople who just want to sell you something
- They may be just trying to collect 500+ connections (this is called “vanity metrics”) in the hope that this huge number will engender trust in them and their services
5. Uber-networkers who just want to connect with the entire world if they can
- They are driven to feel important and like to see themselves in the middle of a giant virtual hub
What Next?
Tomorrow in Part 2 I’ll share with you tips on how to milk LinkedIn, and I’ll detail 8 cows.
In the meantime, start to think about how each of these audience groups have different information needs, and which groups are more important to you right now.