Agenda
Is your expertise evident online? LinkedIn is not just about finding a job or marketing products and services. It is the most relevant location for professional experts to demonstrate relevancy.
Technology continues to create tremendous shifts in social power and expert influence. Uber and Lyft have shifted power away from traditional transportation institutions and into the hands of individual vehicle owners. Airbnb have shifted power away from hospitality institutions and into the hands of property owners. Bloggers have killed newspapers. Amazon has gutted malls. The trend is away from the traditional institutions and into the new masses. A teenager in her bedroom can now publish music or opinion as fast (or faster) than Sony or NBC.
Most professional experts do not care about influencing the masses. They see this shift as irrelevant to them, but the threat to your professional power and influence will almost certainly be digital.
Digital tools such as LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and others matter. People expect experts to be accessible and visible.
Right now, your LinkedIn title probably matches the job title on your business card and for most people this is a problem.
The problem is in most cases your job title doesn’t tell anyone about your expertise. CEO, CMO, VP Sales, Director HR, Product Marketer, Frontline Systems Engineer Level 3...you might as well put “Human” in your title, for all the good it'll do you.
There are two exceptions:
If you’re not Mark Zuckerberg or a journalist then instead of listing your title, tell us about your expertise.
Your banner is that big horizontal space behind your profile photo. If you haven’t uploaded anything, it’s a default blue design.
You may have thought about using that space before, and then thought “Bah, I’m not a designer, and who cares what I put there? If I put up a photo of a landscape or a fish or something, what difference will it make?” It won’t. That is, putting a photo of a landscape or a fish or something artsy, but meaningless, will not make a difference. It also won’t make a difference if you put those types of images up on a billboard. And yet people pay thousands of dollars each month to rent billboard space. So start thinking like those advertisers and ask yourself what you would do if you had a free $5K/month billboard spot, because that’s what LinkedIn is giving you. And you’re leaving it with that default blue/blank graphic? Time to put that real estate to use.
Use the About section of LinkedIn to tell the story of your expertise. When you’re writing your bio or “About” section on LinkedIn, make the first three lines count, like Lacey Abbacchi
The first three lines is all people see until they expand the view by clicking “...see more,” and what happens if they never click to see more? They never read the rest of the story. You might have the most amazing bio in the world, but if the first three lines don’t hook visitors, nobody will know. This applies to both mobile and desktop. What should you put in those first three lines? It depends, but think about these questions as you write those first lines:
If you want to win on LinkedIn, whatever "winning" means to you, tell stories. Here are places you can tell stories: your title, your banner, your bio, your work experience, and your posts. If you can figure out how to tell a story anywhere else, do it there as well.
People are hardwired to love stories. Anyone who has children knows that they love to hear stories. “Dad! Tell us a story!” And, we don’t stop asking for stories when we grow up. We read books. We binge watch Netflix. We gossip. When we meet someone we haven’t seen for a while we ask, "What have you been up to?" Storytelling is so powerful it is even used as treatment for PTSD.
Years ago we were taught to right a resume. Most of us then converted that into the work section in LinkedIn. There is nothing wrong with that except by itself it is boring.
Tell us:
Write this as though you were meeting with a close friend or family member for lunch, someone you know would be excited to hear about it, but who knows you well enough that you don’t need to give them a bunch of fluff or try to impress them with a big show.
When you get human and allow us to see what it’s really like to be you, you’ll help us feel like we already know you.
By getting vulnerable and telling us about challenges you faced, you’ll encourage us to trust you.
By showing us how you overcame your challenges, you’ll prove your competence and show us you can figure things out and get stuff done, which is what employers, partners, investors, and other audiences want to see.
