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LinkedIn Profile Secrets - The #1 Reason Why Your LinkedIn Profile Fails to Attract More Prospects

Guest post by: Kristina Jaramillo

Article Overview: Here is how you can Improve your LinkedIn profile headline and attract more clients and gain instant credibility...

LinkedIn Profile Secrets - The #1 Reason Why Your LinkedIn Profile Fails to Attract More Prospects

Right under your name, does your LinkedIn profile headline look like this...

* CEO & Founder at XYZ and Associates?

* Business Owner at ABC Consulting?

* Speaker at YourName.com?

3 Reasons Why Your Profile Should Not Be the Same as Your Position

1. Think of your headline as your first sales pitch to people who want to connect with you. If I am unfamiliar with you or your company, how does mentioning your company name and your position show me what you do and why I need to connect with you? It doesn't! These headlines are too general, simple and straight forward. They are too vague and too broad. In order for your headline to be effective, it needs to grab my attention. It needs to make me want to read the rest of your profile. As a potential client or potential referral source, I need to see right away how you can help me or my clients.

2. When I am invited to connect with someone, I view their profile before I choose to accept. The first thing that I look at is their headline to see if there is any possible synergy between the person who wants to connect with me and my business. By doing this I can see if it is worth my time and energy to view the rest of their profile. Make your headline enticing so I will want to read your profile and connect with you.

3. If someone is going through people search or through the groups to see who they should connect with, they are looking at hundred to thousands of opportunities. You need to make your business stand out to entice others to want to click on your name to read your profile and learn more about you.

Now that you know that you need to drastically improve your LinkedIn profile headline in order to attract more clients, the question is, how do you fix it?

4 Questions You Must Ask Yourself When Creating Your LinkedIn Profile Headline

1) What can you say in your headline that will give your instant credibility?

One of the easiest ways to gain that instant credibility is to use any media attention. For example, I was recently called a "Social Media Expert" by the New York Times. Look how I use this media mention in my new LinkedIn profile headline to give me instant credibility:

"Read my profile now and discover LinkedIn secrets from the woman the New York Times called a social media expert".

2) Does your LinkedIn profile headline command action?

The best way to get someone to read your profile further is to tell them to do so. Just look at my example above. Notice I'm giving you a call-to-action. By stating read, view or learn more by reading my profile, you are instructing the reader to do so. And, guess what - chances are they'll listen. You just have to tell your prospects what to do - and why they need to take the action.

3) Does your LinkedIn profile headline show why you are different?

Go to people search on LinkedIn and type in your career description. Look at how many people match your description. For example, when I type in "internet marketing consultant" into people search it gives me 139,041 results. The phrase "life coach" gives me 83,847 results. The phrase "business coach returns" 224,274 results. In your headline if you show how and why you are unique chances are your prospects will explore your business further than that of your competition.

For example Article Marketing Experts Eric Gruber's profile headline was: See how we can get you published on websites like About.com - instead of just article directories like our competition.

4) Does your LinkedIn profile headline show a benefit to the reader?

By implying there is an advantage to your reader by viewing your profile you are telling them that there is a benefit of using your products or services. The reader needs a reason to accept a connection with you. By giving them a benefit you are instilling confidence in your business. For example:

* Help My Website Sell Founder Adam Hommey's headline is: Top internet marketing consultant and expert webmaster reveals how to make your website sell more products and services

* The Global Institute of Visionary Executives Founder Carrie Jacobs has this as her headline: Read my profile and learn from a champion visionary executive coach how you can profit from your own brand of success

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Article Tags: competition, internet marketers, LinkedIn, people search, referral source, sales pitch, small business



Related Forum Posts
Re: On Which Social Media Sites Are You Most Active? - I'd be curious to hear how you guys use LinkedIn. I have close to 3,000 connections and never use it. I've been told the secret is to use groups (which I don't) so I'd love to hear how you guys are benefiting from LinkedIn.
Re: Twiiter an sales - [quote="soldlab":1ycb8vnm]I guess though LinkedIn is better for actual leag generation and personal contacts. What do you think?[/quote:1ycb8vnm] I've had a lot more success (thus far) with Twitter than LinkedIn or Facebook.
Re: The Storm Brace a new invention - Hi Breck, To add your signature, click on "User Control Panel" above, then click on "Profile" and then "Edit Signature". You can also add a photo via the "Edit Avatar" link in the Profile section. DH
Re: Social Media Effectively? - Personally, I use social media to build my company brand in order to get awareness of the various franchises I work with. I am active on LinkedIn and Twitter (@DougSchadle), always posting information about the franchise opportunities I work with. I have started discussions and basically just try to get the word out there. Also, I turned one of my clients to social media as well. I work with Doctors Express, the first national urgent care franchise, expanding their franchise base. They are quickly spreading throughout the country and I told the founder to jump on to Twitter and LinkedIn as well. He just started a few weeks ago (Twitter handle @Doctors_Express) and tells me he is loving it. He is posting different medical issues he sees and is tweeting about Doctors Express. He is joining medical groups on LinkedIn and trying to connect to other doctors. So in short, I do think franchises can be very successful with social media, they just have to put in the time to do it.
Re: 15 Ways You Can Look Amazing on LinkedIn - I agree with GT in that this advice can be applied to more than just LinkedIn. Excellent tips!


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