LinkedIn is the latest social media site to adopt a highly visual layout which started with Facebook’s timeline. While many companies don’t spend a lot of time on optimizing and maintaining their LinkedIn profiles it still is a public facing image of your company. Prospective clients and employees can and will see it before deciding if they want to work with or for you. Small changes can make your profile pop.
- Add a banner image to your LinkedIn profile. I recommend you use the same image for Facebook, Google + and LinkedIn.
- Use images with updates. Updates that you post to your LinkedIn profile home page are more prominent with even larger images drawing more attention to them and creating a more engaging profile.
- Add products and offers. Career & products are more prominent and are featured in the top navigation of the page and in the right rail driving more traffic to these sections of the profile. Think outside the box when it comes to describing products/services you provide. They don’t have to be products & services you offer in the traditional sense. Consider adding downloads/white papers to these tabs to encourage people to engage in your lead gen efforts.
- Encourage recommendations. Recommendations are more prominently featured on the products page. Encourage customers to recommend your products & services to help fill out your LinkedIn profile.
- Review the new layout. LinkedIn has moved around where content falls on the page so it’s wise to review how your current content is appearing on the page and update as needed.
While LinkedIn might not be a 1st tier social profile for your company it is worth the time to maintain and optimize your profile when the platform changes. It is still important that you are presenting your company in the best light possible for possible prospects and employees.