Author: Julie Pacenka, Marketing Strategist
Why Do We Need a Personal Brand?
As marketing professionals, we spend so much time improving companies’ digital presence that we often don’t truly know how to effectively market ourselves. With the digital age becoming more prevalent by the day, the online recruiting process becomes crucial to master. Young professionals must build a personal brand for themselves. They will carefully lay their digital footprint, as it will follow them wherever they go. Some find themselves too modest to share their personal accomplishments, but by not sharing they are selling themselves short. Employees who share professional content make a huge impact on their career growth because it provides personal credibility for employers to reference. This blog post will go into all the steps on how to efficiently present yourself on LinkedIn and optimize your personal brand.
The Perfect Profile Pic
When it comes to LinkedIn, it is vital to have a clear professional headshot that accurately depicts what brand you want to create. According to LinkedIn, the ideal profile photo would be 400 by 400 pixels, to avoid low-resolution photos that will not present well online. LinkedIn recommends using a photo that has 60% of your face in it. The best photos span from your shoulders to the top of your head. For LinkedIn, choose a photo that allows someone to get familiar with your face, as it is the beginning of your personal brand. Wear what you would want to wear to work! Keep it professional, but also keep it unique to you! Next, add a background photo that represents who you are. This provides more insight into your interests and what is important to you. Lastly, add a short description of what inspires you.
Tell Your Story Through Your Profile
Now it is time to buff out the rest of the profile with suitable content and information. Create a summary section on your LinkedIn page to tell your own story. This adds a little personality to your page. It doesn’t need to be all about your current roles or skills, but rather it can provide some insight into why you love to do what you do. In the skill section, list the relevant skills that you have learned through your past experiences. You can even take a skills assessment run by LinkedIn to prove your skill set. Another way to provide personal credibility would be to request endorsements from coworkers or anyone who you feel can best describe what you bring to the table.
Content is the Base of Your Personal Brand
Finally, start sharing content! This can be all about what you’re accomplishing at work, professional events you attend, or topics you are intrigued about. Including photos, blogs, or other forms of media to go with the post often draws more engagement. However, be sure to review the material and ensure it is content you want employers to see. One’s digital footprint can be a powerful tool to have, but it also can be one’s enemy if they aren’t careful. You want to think through if this is the correct platform for the content to be posted on or if you should even post it at all.
Engage with Others
As vital as having your own content is, engaging with others’ content can be just as important. Connecting with peers, professors, and professionals in your desired industry is so easy with the tools of the digital age. Building your network is crucial in order to succeed in your professional career. Having a connection to a desired workplace can be the aspect that makes or breaks a hiring manager’s decision. When you go to connect with someone, send along a quick note describing how you know them or how you would like to get to know them! Once you build up your connections, engage with everyone! This could merely be congratulating a peer on landing a new position or liking someone’s post.
Jobs Feature
After you have a well-developed profile, you are ready to start searching for jobs or internships. LinkedIn has a great feature built into the platform where you can search for open positions. This “Jobs” tab is where you are going to be able to filter through all the positions based on location, position title, and if they’re remote or in person. In addition, you can add the “#OpenToWork” to your profile picture, which allows recruiters to know you are actively searching for a new position. However, be careful of spam posts or messages. Make sure you fully read through all the posting entails and validate if it is a credible source.
Conclusion
Ultimately, by having all this information easily accessible on your profile, you are creating a three-dimensional personal portfolio for yourself. A professional resume is still crucial to present to employers, but linking your LinkedIn page to this document provides ample space to showcase your personal brand. It is a place where you can let your personality shine through and prove that you are someone an employer needs at their company. In Voice Z Digital, all the strategists learned how to leverage the services we offer in interviews, as well as on LinkedIn. From now on, when you go to post something, take a second to think if it aligns with the personal brand you desire to portray. Lay the groundwork for a positive digital footstep.
Sources:
https://www.businessnewsdaily.com/6107-tips-for-getting-hired-on-linkedin.html
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