Is Your LinkedIn Profile Photo Reflecting Your Professionalism?

This week,  I am focusing on your LinkedIn Profile Photo.

Your LinkedIn Profile Photo is the small photo of you that sits under the large background image at the top of your profile.

Where is my Profile Photo Seen?

When you send out an update on LinkedIn, this photo will accompany the update.  

It is also seen when you like, comment or share anyone else’s posts.

If you create a LinkedIn article, your profile photo will also be used. 

Given the different places your profile photo is used, it’s important to get it right and is a key aspect of your profile.   

No Photo, No Trust

If you have no photo on your profile, people may not connect with you or contact you to work with them. It doesn’t give a great first impression or promote trust.

Conversely having a photo here means your profile will get 14 x more views,  a pretty staggering statistic.  A profile photo will instill confidence & encourages people to find out more about you and your business.

Here are some examples of profile photos I put together where everyone looks relaxed, friendly and approachable.

This may sound obvious but your profile photo should show what you look like today. On a number of occasions I’ve worked with clients who had photos that were 1o – 15 years old and they had changed dramatically in some cases.

Use A High Quality Photo

Make sure you use as high a quality photo as you can.  If your photo looks blurry, what does it say about you and your business?

What Should I Wear For My Profile Photo? 

Some people get into a tizzy about what to wear for a LinkedIn Profile photo.  My advice  is to be as authentic as possible. As long as you look smart and yourself, that’s great.  Make sure to smile as this will make you look more approachable and encourage visitors to connect with you.

Professional Headshot 

My overall advice is, if you can afford it, get a professional profile headshot done. 

Although the photo of me below was not officially a professional headshot, it was taken by my videographer with professional equipment.

She was testing out her video cameras to ensure they were in the right position for filming and took some photos to check if I was happy with it.

The video recording session that keeps on giving!

On my LinkedIn profile photo below, the background is cut out and my face fills the frame.

If you have a good photo of yourself, zone in on your face and very little of the background will be seen.

The dimensions of a  LinkedIn profile photo are 400 x 400.

If you are just starting out and don’t have the budget, ask someone to take your photo with a good phone camera and I’m sure it will look great.

For the first 5 years on LinkedIn I used a decent photo someone had taken of me.

Like everything when the budget allows, you can upgrade.

That’s it for today – have a great week!

Marian

Have You Claimed Your LinkedIn Profile URL?

Welcome to this weeks issue of ‘LinkedIn For Entrepreneurs’, where I want to check if you’ve claimed your LinkedIn Profile URL?

Now, if you are anything like me (not techy!) , when you hear mention of HMTL and URL, your eyes start to glaze over and your brain goes funny.

But stick with me on this one and I will explain to you what a LinkedIn Profile URL is, why you should claim it and a video lesson on how to do this.

What is a LinkedIn Profile URL?

The LinkedIn Profile URL is the website link that corresponds to your LinkedIn profile (see image below).    This link is automatically generated when you originally set up your profile. 

Why should I claim my LinkedIn Profile URL?

This link generated by LinkedIn is usually quite long and has lots of numbers at the end of it.   

What you want is for your link to look something like this, a nice clean link https://www.linkedin.com/in/marianmurphy/

You can then add this link to the end of your email signature so potential clients can connect directly with you from an email.  This means you can continue to build up your LinkedIn connections and professional network even when you’re not on LinkedIn. 

And remember if that person moves to another company, it doesn’t matter, you are connected to them forever! Result!!

How Can I Claim My LinkedIn Profile URL

Today I am going to share my lesson from my digital course Power Up Your LinkedIn Profile   on how to claim your LinkedIn Profile URL.

It’s under 2 minutes and well worth putting this into action on your own profile, if you haven’t done so.  This lesson takes you step by step through the process on how to claim your LinkedIn Profile URL.

I hope you found this weeks issue valuable – Have a great week!

Marian

Positive First Impressions with a LinkedIn Profile Background Image

Welcome to this weeks issue of LinkedIn for Entrepreneurs where I focus on the LinkedIn Profile Background Image.

Do you use a background image or do you know what it is?

Today I’ll tell you all about it, the dimensions to use, why you should use one and how to do this.

A LinkedIn Background Image is the main image behind your small headshot photo on your LinkedIn profile, represented by a pale blue space as in the image below.

LinkedIn Background Image

The background image represents a large part of your LinkedIn Profile ‘real estate’ as many refer to it as.

It provides a fantastic opportunity to communicate visually what you and your business is all about.

Dimensions For LinkedIn Background Image

The dimensions for the LinkedIn Background image are 1584 pixels wide x 396 pixels tall.

Examples of LinkedIn Background Images

Think about how you can use this space with imagery – e.g. a photographer could have an image of themselves on a photo shoot, a fantastic action shot.

A coach or consultant can show an image of themselves talking to a client, showing a supportive expression.

Generating Ideas For LinkedIn Background Image

Do a 15 minute brainstorm on ideas that would best represent you and your business here and choose one.  You can change it later.

My philosophy is get an image up that’s good and improve over time.  Rome wasn’t built in a day.

I’ve had to leave my perfectionist tendencies behind to make progress, and would advise you to do the same.

I’ve shared an example of my LinkedIn background image below.

These photos were taken when I was filming for my digital course in City Quarter, Cork and I love the ‘action’ element to them as well as the video cameras in the shots. Not to everyone’s taste but I always love looking at behind the scenes shots.

Adding a Logo

I’ve included my logo on the image above, so immediately visitors know I’m involved in the social media area and can search to find out more.

Canva

To create the above background image,  I used a tool called Canva.

Canva is a fantastic tool for creating background and social media images, especially for non techy people like me!

I created this image by using their template ‘LinkedIn Banner’.  I added a grid to hold the 3 images, dropped the images on the template and then added my logo.

If you’re just starting out and adding a LinkedIn background image for the first time, upload one image to your profile and see how it looks.

How To Upload Your Background Image

On the top corner on my background image above, there is a pencil icon – click on this to upload your photo and choose ‘apply’ when you are happy with it.

View On Different Devices

A tip is to look at the background image on different devices as the positioning of your smaller headshot image is different on mobile, ipad and desktop.

I hope you found today’s issue valuable – Have a great week!

Marian

How Entrepreneurs Can Build A Professional Network on LinkedIn 

It may be basic but as my 1st (of many) blog posts on LinkedIn, I am going to start off with an outline of how to build your professional network as an entrepreneur.  

LinkedIn is the online platform you absolutely must consider as there are now 756 million members in 200 countries and regions worldwide.  

 As an entrepreneur you can do this by following what I consider the 4 building blocks of your LinkedIn Presence.  

THE 4 C’s

1. Capturing the essence of yourself & your business using your LinkedIn Profile 
2. Connecting with other LinkedIn members
3. Creating content to convey your brand & business message
4. Communicating with other LinkedIn members  

Capturing Your Business Essence on your LinkedIn Profile 

Your LinkedIn Profile is the beating heart of your LinkedIn presence.  Spending quality time on completing your LinkedIn profile will mean you show up with clarity, confidence and credibility and you will capture the essence of yourself and your business for visitors and potential clients to see.  Your LinkedIn profile provides multiple and creative opportunities for you to communicate your message in both a written and visual way.  The team at LinkedIn is adding new features all the time to make your profile stand out more which I will be talking about in upcoming blog posts so keep your eyes peeled.  

Connecting on LinkedIn 

As LinkedIn is the world’s largest professional network, with 756 million members, it seems a no-brainer to get connected here. When you are proud of your LinkedIn profile, you will then have the confidence to connect with other LinkedIn members and potential clients.  You can build your professional network by connecting with people you have previously or currently work with, previous clients, existing clients, people in organisations you are a member of, as well as connections beyond your existing network.  You can also accept invitations from other LinkedIn members to connect.   

Creating Content That Resonates on LinkedIn 

Once you have created a profile you are proud of and started connecting with other LinkedIn members, you can then create content relating to your brand and business and post this content using LinkedIn posts and articles.  Many entrepreneurs struggle with what they should talk about.  Some ideas include, personal stories, projects you are working on, client testimonials, answer customer pain points and valuable tips that will elevate you to ‘expert’ in your field in the minds of your connections.  By creating this content you are building the Know-Like-Trust factor that online networking is built on.  You must also engage with the content of your connections by liking, commenting or sharing their posts and articles.  LinkedIn rewards this interaction and your content will receive greater exposure because of your efforts 

Communicating On LinkedIn 

Many entrepreneurs set up their LinkedIn profile and think, job done! However this is the foundation on which everything else is built.  It is vital that you engage with your connections and engage with the content they create.  You have many ways to communicate with your connections and using LinkedIn messaging can be one of the most powerful ways.  See an interesting article your connection might find useful? Send them a message with a link.  You hope that your connections will also send on interesting content to you when they come across it or share it in a post.  You can also like, comment and share your connections posts and articles.  By following these simple practices on LinkedIn you will soon be viewed as a decent entrepreneur who is willing to play the long game and build up relationships in an organic way.  

Learn something new today? – I would love to hear what that is!

Until next week!

Thanks a mil 

Marian