Building your presence on Linkedin

Facebook’s impending IPO has obviously raised awareness of the value of social media & the potential future which lies in this industry. This is obviously a case study in itself at the macro-economic level, but there are many critical aspects which all of us as individuals miss out in the benefits of Social Media. As in any other field of knowledge, social media has its share of “Haves”, “Have-nots” & “Clueless”.

The first category “Haves” are the folks who are big fans of social media, have a invested time & effort in crafting an online presence, are very frequent users & make the best use of the available resources. The “Have-nots” on the other hand are folks who have vaguely understood that there is something called social media & have made feeble attempts to at drive a stake in the ground, by creating some sort of presence on the various social media available, but do not have enough reasons to go back to the scanty profiles created by them & do not invest the time required to build a presence in this new world. The “Clueless” on the other hand are folks who are true to the name of the category & do not have an idea of how they can tap into these new frontiers. This article is to encourage the “Haves” to share some of their tips & success stories, to help the “Have-nots” fill in the gaps & put in the right efforts & to ensure that the “Clueless” have a perspective on what they are missing out & take the first steps in that direction.

The composition of folks in each of these 3 categories obviously varies in terms of geography, industry as well as age profiles. If we examine this from the context of India, it is definitely one of the fastest growing countries on various social media, the slant is obviously more urban & leans towards technology & services related industries. The age profile is also more skewed towards the younger generation especially when it comes to Facebook.

When I look at the multiple folks connected with me on Linkedin, I am sometimes saddened to see the cursory effort put in by the “Have-nots” on their profile & wonder if they realize the amount of professional damage they are doing to themselves in this process. If I have a scheduled meeting with someone, the first thing I do is to check on their Linkedin profile & the same is being done every day by scores of people who are interacting with you. If you have only driven a stake in the ground, then it might be a good start, but at the other end exposes you as a “Have-not” as you have not even bothered to put in additional efforts.

We will examine the benefits & use of social media in the various prevalent forms, but to start let’s take a quick look at Linkedin & some of the essential points which one needs to internalize whilst using this social media tool for professionals. People tend to underestimate the value of a good profile on Linkedin & assume that it is just another form of a resume. Most folks do not realize that a good Linkedin profile is a far richer source of information which one can provide to the world & can tend to high-light many more aspects of your professional career & individual strengths. It is therefore imperative that one invests the appropriate amount of time to build the “brand” which is you & ensure that this personal brand establishes the “USP – Unique Selling Proposition” which you as a brand possess. Let’s run through some basic elements which are essential for this process;

1. Full name – Many people tend to use their full name professionally, but are rather coy when putting this up on Linkedin. The first piece of advice is to ensure that you use the name which people know you professionally. Ultimately your aim is to make it easier for others to locate you & truncating your first name of surname is obviously not going to help the process. After all who would want to wade through 110 profiles of “Rajesh Shah” before locating the person known to you? Converting this to “R. Shah” or “Rajesh S.” will only make the process tougher.
2. Headline – This is something which appears immediately under your name & is a short summary of your professional identity. Most folks just land up putting in their current designation & name of the company in this. All of us are unique & cannot be limited by the narrow boundaries of our current titles or organizations. Chances are that you have contributed to the success of multiple organizations across different industries. Even if you have worked for the same company for a long time, you have might have managed a myriad of different roles in the same company. Therefore putting in more qualitative descriptors about you & helps you to help other see the broader canvas of your work. Try replacing “Regional Sales Manager at XYZ Ltd” with “Successful sales professional & leader with proven track record in the ABC industry” as a start.
3. Location & Industry – This information is not some “state secret” which needs to be camouflaged, but information which should be readily shared. It ensures that people are able to locate you easily & beyond this it might help customers contact sales people & job offers in your town/industry to be made available to you.
4. Summary & Specialties – This is the best place to put in an “Elevator pitch” about yourself. Basically a quick summary which covers essential points of information about you & your specialties. Try not to only put in generic statements, but also cover some specifics which highlight your “USP’s”
5. Complete info on Education & Experience – I see a lot of profiles which only specify the current organisation in Experience & do not cover previous roles & organizations. Similarly education is also covered as some acronym which some people might understand as they might be in the same country or industry, but might leave others guessing. The simpler approach here is to ensure that you put in basic info from your resume, but also enumerate acronyms & elucidate info on your role/organisation. Include links to the website of your previous organisation & education institutions so that someone can get more info from the same.

With this we finish the first stage of ensuring that your profile is complete & serves the purpose that it was created for. We will discuss other areas of making effective use of your profile in future articles. Do let me know if this was a good starting point for your own Linkedin profile & if you have managed to improve your profile in any way with these basic tips.