Three Easy Ways To Make LinkedIn Profile Unique

With LinkedIn members growing rapidly and the ranks approaching a billion, it’s getting harder and harder to stand out. Of course, you don't need to differentiate yourself from the entire membership, just from others who do what you do. But that’s a tall order too. I did some quick research using the LinkedIn search feature to see just how much competition there is among some common job titles:

With that much competition, it’s important to make your profile stand out. When someone is checking you out, you need them to see your unique personal brand – not just one more person who shares your job title. Much of that can be achieved through how you write your profile. The content you choose to include, along with your tone and style, will help someone get to know about you and give them a hint about your secret sauce.

There are ways to differentiate you profile visually as well. You can do that with enhanced text, images and video. Here’s how:

If you’ve looked at a lot of LinkedIn profiles like I have, you’ve probably noticed that the text looks the same from profile to profile. It is all “regular” text. Well, there’s a way to add italics and bold to your content to help you emphasize key messages and at the same time make your profile stand out. A LinkedIn article by Ahmad Imam describes the step-by-step process you can use to add some visual differentiation with text. Just don't go overboard. Too much of a good thing can send the wrong message about your brand.

Let’s face it, text can be boring. It’s also a weaker way to tell your story than you can with images. There are four places to add images to your profile:

When it comes to making your profile pop, the only thing better than pictures is moving pictures. Adding videos is very similar to addingstill images. You can add them to your Summary (About) and Experience profile elements. When someone looks at your profile, videos do the same job as pictures; they add visual interest to your profile. But when someone clicks on one of your videos and watches it, they get a much deeper and clearer understanding of who you are – way beyond what they could glean from your words and images alone. That’s because video allows you to exude your personality and deliver a complete communication. And the best news is that thanks to our waning attention spans, your videos need not be long. In fact, a pithy, potent one- or two-minute video will do the most to showcase your brand. Just make sure that the video delivers something ofvalue to the viewer.

When you apply these enhancements to your profile, you move yourself from commodity to differentiated brand.

William Arruda is the cofounder of CareerBlast and creator of the complete LinkedIn quiz that helps you evaluate your LinkedIn profile and networking strategy.

Source: Forbes.com

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