LinkedIn Personal Branding Tips: 15 Things To Give Your Profile an Edge

LinkedIn Personal Branding Tips: 15 Things To Give Your Profile an Edge

written by Houston Golden
Founder & CEO, BAMF Media
July 20th, 2021
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Let’s do a quick exercise.

Stop for a minute and ask yourself:

How do you want people to see you?

Have your answer?

Great.

Now how do you think people actually see you?

If the answers to both of these questions don’t match, then you might be facing a problem with your LinkedIn personal branding and things have to change quickly.

That’s why we prepared this guide to help you with your LinkedIn branding journey.

Color Schemes Have to Match

Always coordinate your colors.

Colors help streamline branding on multiple platforms that you’re using i.e., your website, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc., and it gives your brand a theme.

Before you start branding yourself on LinkedIn, make sure you pick colors that represent who you are.

You can either use existing colors that you’re already using with other platforms or if you’re new to branding, you can use color psychology to decide on what colors you want to use.

Now there are two main places where you want to match colors, that’s your profile photo and your LinkedIn cover image.

For your profile photo, we suggest matching the background photo with the main color that you want to use. Your cover image should also have that color prominently showcased.

If you’re affiliated with a company, you can use their corporate color palette to show prospects that you’re united under one banner.

Pick a Voice …and Stick With It

Everyone has a unique voice on LinkedIn.

Some sound confident.

Some are fun.

And, there are others who take a more serious tone.

This is the reason why we spend a lot of time with our clients to figure out their unique voices to use with their posts.

The way you write your voice, optimize your profile and even design your graphics have to go with the overall theme of this “voice”.

If you come off as really fun and professional on LinkedIn, you can’t bore people with 200-page case studies attached to your posts.

It has to be streamlined and consistent.

Now figuring out this voice isn’t really hard.

Your voice is reflective of your personality, so if you’re outgoing then use an outgoing friendly approach with people on the network, if you’re inquisitive, ask more questions, etc.

Here’s another critical thing that you have to keep in mind.

Your LinkedIn voice also dictates who your audience will be, so you have to match your voice with your audience. People will naturally gravitate to people that sound like them or put out content that resonates with them.

Take stock of what you sound like.

And, use that voice consistently.

There is no such thing as a personality that doesn’t work on LinkedIn, it’s probably just bad optimization.

You Need a Custom URL for LinkedIn Personal Branding

A custom URL does a couple of things for your LinkedIn profile.

First off, it gives your profile a unique ID that’s easily readable even if you include it in your stationery or email footer.

Next, it tells prospects that you pay attention to detail because there are still a lot of people who use default LinkedIn URLs, you don’t want to be them.

They’re great for branding because they add customization to your profile and make you easily searchable online or on LinkedIn.

In SEO best practices, the URL is the first thing you tweak because you want crawlers to make sure that whatever keyword or name is on there is directly attributed to the web property it’s addressing.

Who You’re Connected to Matters

Tell me who your friends are, and I’ll tell you who you are.

This is one of the fundamental truths of every social network today.

The moment your prospect lands on your profile, they will automatically see which of their connections are also connected to you.

If you’re connected to a lot of people from the same industry as your prospect, this automatically becomes a trust signal because you’re associated with their connections.

You want to continuously build the number of connections that you have because this helps you increase your reach if you’re trying to build brand awareness. More people get to see what you’re posting and as a result it makes for more efficient marketing campaigns.

But, that’s not all.

If you’re aiming to be a LinkedIn influencer you want to have a lot of connections.

The more connections and followers that you have, the better the social proof you build with first-time visitors to your profile.

A lot of connections automatically indicates that you’re someone that people follow and are willing to be friends with.

LinkedIn Formatting is the Only Way to Make Text Pop

Text on LinkedIn is simple.

It follows a singular format and there’s no quick way you can add anything special like bold or italicized texts.

Here’s the problem with that.

Everyone is using normal text because they’re forced into it.

If you want to stand out, you cannot join “everyone”.

That’s why growth hackers have turned into LinkedIn formatting.

Although only LinkedIn publishing will allow rich-text formatting, anybody can use unique characters to get their desired formatting onto their text.

Check out my about summary for example.

linkedin personal branding, LinkedIn Personal Branding Tips: 15 Things To Give Your Profile an Edge

Notice how I was able to put in the bold text?

Since I couldn’t find a button to turn it bold, I found bold characters that I could use and inserted them into the text field.

Now I have a complete guide that you can check out here ?

Curious about how to do LinkedIn formatting? Follow our guide today.

Now don’t just leave it at that.

Make sure you add LinkedIn bullet points and LinkedIn emojis to spice up your normal, “boring”-looking text.

Consider Getting a Follow Button on Your Profile

One of the first quick optimizations that we get the members of our LinkedIn influencer academy to do is to get themselves a “Follow” button replacing the “Connect” button.

This small optimization tells people who land on your page that you’re not just an ordinary LinkedIn member, but a thought leader or industry expert because you have to be “followed”.

linkedin personal branding, LinkedIn Personal Branding Tips: 15 Things To Give Your Profile an Edge

You might not get a thousand followers right away, but it’s a great first step in becoming an influencer on the platform.

Use LinkedIn Publishing

If you’re already running a blog or if you’ve got good ideas that you want to share with everyone on the platform, then consider using LinkedIn Publishing.

Why?

Because people who publish articles are seen as experts.

Think about it.

When you think of an industry or thought leader on LinkedIn, don’t you expect them to have something published?

linkedin personal branding, LinkedIn Personal Branding Tips: 15 Things To Give Your Profile an Edge

Getting articles out using LinkedIn articles is a great way to establish yourself as a professional in your industry.

It gets you noticed and it adds a lot of social proof.

It’s one of those branding moves that you need if you’re moving to become a LinkedIn influencer.

Your Content Has to Be of Value

The LinkedIn content that you put out has to provide value.

Posting for the sake of posting doesn’t work anymore.

Why?

Because it doesnt help anyone.

People spend time with content that helps them do more with their professional or personal lives.

Here’s a list of content that you could put out:

  • infographics
  • calculators
  • templates
  • slideshows
  • guides
  • actionable articles
  • directories
  • tips

And, of course.

  • BAMF’s signature plain text founder stories.

Putting out content with value establishes your reputation on LinkedIn.

The more value you give out, the more you establish your personal brand as a thought leader.

After Creating Value You Need to Brand Your Content

Your content also has to contain branding elements either from your personal theme or your organization.

This allows you to streamline your branding with other web properties that you may have.

For example, if you’re releasing a graphic, it has to contain either a watermark of your logo or contain the same color palette.

However, for text posts, having a catchphrase or a recurring theme will help.

This branding helps differentiate your content from others.

You Need to Interact With People

One way to get your personal brand out there is through interactions with people.

So this means you need to reply with people that comment on your content, engage with other LinkedIn influencers and growth marketers, and sustain the voice and personality that you have on LinkedIn with these interactions.

Interacting with people shows people on LinkedIn that you are friendly and easy to talk to.

The easier it is to talk with you, the more your brand comes off as non-intimidating and this translates to more prospects going through to your funnel.

Get Your Privacy Settings in Order

The more people you reach.

The more people you can connect with using your branding.

However, here’s the problem.

Your LinkedIn privacy settings might not be helping you get the exposure you need.

If you really want to maximize the reach of your LinkedIn profile and the amount of branding you’ve put into it, then you have to turn most of your profile public.

A quick visit to your “Visibility” settings followed by tweaks to the “Visibility of profile & network” should do the trick.

I would even advise that you go to “Edit your public profile”.

linkedin personal branding, LinkedIn Personal Branding Tips: 15 Things To Give Your Profile an Edge

Now once you’re there, make sure that all sliders are moved to the right so anyone can see who you are and what you do for a living.

linkedin personal branding, LinkedIn Personal Branding Tips: 15 Things To Give Your Profile an Edge

However, this will still be dependent on whatever makes you feel the most comfortable.

Some people get away with pure branding using their current privacy settings, but if you want to maximize what you’re doing increasing your reach is the way to go.

Add a Lot of LinkedIn Social Proof!

Adding social proof to your LinkedIn account is critical to the LinkedIn branding process because it enables you to build trust with a prospect as soon as they land on your profile.

One of the common methods is to show trust by association by including the logos of your clients in your cover photo.

Most of our clients also do this because it shows prospects that you already have experience working with high-profile clients. If prospects hold those brands in high regard, there is a tendency that it will overflow to you.

linkedin personal branding, LinkedIn Personal Branding Tips: 15 Things To Give Your Profile an Edge

Here’s another example.

linkedin personal branding, LinkedIn Personal Branding Tips: 15 Things To Give Your Profile an Edge

Trust by association signals are one of the best ways to build rapport with a client and subtly tell them about the scope of what you do.

You also want to get as many endorsements as you can get for your skills.

This shows people that you are talented and there are others who can vouch for you.

You can do this by using an outbound campaign that encourages people to endorse you and this also acts as a way of checking up on people who are already in your network.

This is a LinkedIn marketing strategy you should be deploying immediately.

Pay Attention to Your About Summary

Your LinkedIn about summary is the first glimpse that an interested prospect has of what you sound like personally.

While there are some people who have profile about summaries written in the third person, it’s still an industry norm for people to write their summaries themselves.

This is a chance for you to showcase what your personal brand is about.

The trick here is not just to tell people about what you do.

If your profile has been optimized properly, folks on your LinkedIn will probably already know what you’re about in the first 10 seconds.

Instead focus on what makes you, you.

Talk about why you do what you do, and the people that you’ve helped.

Utilize the power of storytelling to give them a glimpse of your life and how you can help them.

That’s what people want to know.

They want to relate to you, but also, they want to get to know you.

Create Your Own Hashtag

LinkedIn hashtags are powerful.

They tell the algorithm where your posts belong to and what subject matter you’re writing about.

And, you can also use them for branding.

However, don’t just use your own personal hashtag when you put out LinkedIn posts.

Make sure that you use them along with one or two other popular hashtags.

For example:

#BAMF #B2B #HR

Although it’s not the biggest change you can do, it sets you apart in LinkedIn search and show people that you believe in your brand and you want to set it apart.

If your personal brand does go big, it will allow people to be able to search for your posts via hashtags.

Make Sure Teams Are Identically Branded

Teams – especially smaller startups – should almost always be identically branded.

This is the same thing we do in BAMF and we’ve found it to be really effective.

Here’s why.

Identical branding helps with brand recognition for any organization, the more people that carry the branding, the wider the reach.

But, it also does a little more subconsciously.

Team branding tells prospects about the synergy that an organization has with each other, it shows unity towards a certain goal, and it’s also an indicator of a healthy corporate culture.

These are quick ways to do team branding:

  • Create templates for cover photos and profile pictures that can easily be personalized and deployed.
  • Make sure one section of everyone’s headline is identical.
  • Take time to create posts that are easily shareable by all members of the organization.
  • Everyone should be encouraged to have their own communication style, but they should always communicate identical values and means.

Takeaways

LinkedIn personal branding is critical.

Not only does it set you apart from the rest.

But, it also makes you memorable.

A little branding goes a long way with scaling your growth.

Without branding most of the popular companies you know of today wouldn’t survive, some influencers wouldn’t get noticed, and brands wouldn’t have their own identities.

So, how does your branding look like lately?

Do you need help?

About the Author

The name's Houston Golden. I'm the Founder & CEO of BAMF — a company I've grown from $0 (yes, really) to well over $5M+ in revenue over a span of 5 years.

How did I do it? Well, it's quite simple, really. I've helped hundreds of business owners and executives get major traction (because when they win, we win), I tell all on this blog.

Growth hacking is a state of mind. Follow along as I explore and expose the unknown growth strategies and tactics that will change the way you think about marketing.
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