How to build your Personal Brand on LinkedIn

Over the past year, the world has relied on the internet to communicate. The pandemic has also revealed the fragility of roles and sectors. A job is rarely a job for life now, there has been a rise in those pursuing a portfolio career and therefore it’s essential to develop a personal brand to be able to create your own opportunities.

There are numerous advantages to having a strong personal brand. People will want to work with you because you stand out from the crowd, and the quality of your content will boost your credibility. You will also attract more opportunities organically, off the back of your brand.

When you have a strong personal brand, people see past who you work for or what business you own; they associate you with your brand. People buy into people; you become 'sticky', and others naturally want to support you because they buy into you.

Did you know that 92 percent of people trust recommendations from people over brands, even if they don’t know them? The saying ‘people buy from people’ didn’t come from anywhere!

Here are my top 10 tips for building your personal brand on LinkedIn in 2021:

1. Position yourself: before you begin elevating your personal brand on LinkedIn, you need to be clear on what you want to be known for. Once you know what you want people to associate you with, make sure you convey and communicate this on your LinkedIn when you work through the following steps.

2. Make sure your profile is complete: you need to have a profile picture; show people you’re a real human! You should also make use of your cover photo. Your cover can relate to your industry, your city, or anything that celebrates your personality or achievements. To see if you have completed your profile, click on the “Me” tab on the top right, then click on “View Profile.” Scroll down until you see “Your Dashboard.” Completing your profile will optimise your profile for LinkedIn. Be sure to create a vanity URL also. This looks better for when you want to send your LinkedIn profile to someone or add it to your signature.

3. Set your profile to "public": if your goal is to build a strong network, attract more opportunities, secure a new role, or gain more clients, then you should make your LinkedIn profile as accessible as possible. To change your profile to public, click on the “Me” tab on the top right, click on “Settings & Privacy”, “Visibility”, and finally “Edit your Public Profile.”

4. Leave comments: on posts that you find interesting: when you interact with others, they reciprocate, and more people see your content. Try to leave comments that add value to the discussion, and your connection requests will increase.

5. Post content: did you know only 1% of LinkedIn users engage with content? This shows there is a huge opportunity to be a thought leader on LinkedIn right now. If you have never posted anything before, start with the goal of posting one piece of content a week and then gradually build it up. Eventually, aim to post three times a week.

6. Connect with people: LinkedIn is all about networking; people are now more open to connecting with unknown contacts. However, try to send a personalised message. Check out their profile. Do you have any mutual connections that you could mention as a conversation starter? Do they follow the same companies, or are they posting exciting content? Take a genuine interest in those you want to connect with, and you will build instant rapport.

7. Join groups: connect with likeminded people, talk about current trends, challenges, ideas and build your network. You can find groups using the search bar at the top of your page, write in what kind of group you’re looking for and then select the “groups” tab.

8. Get recommendations for your profile: boost your credibility. Click the “Me” icon at the top of your LinkedIn homepage. Select “View profile.” Scroll down to the Recommendations section and click "Ask to be recommended.” You can ask for recommendations from colleagues, previous managers, people you have helped, suppliers, mentors or even someone you did a talk for.

9. Use Hashtags: posting with hashtags will make your content more visible to people. Three to five hashtags are recommended. Think of using one broad hashtag, one niche hashtag and one very niche hashtag.

10. Use the “featured” section: highlight the posts you want people to see when visiting your page. Spotlighting content is a great way to showcase your experience, credibility, knowledge, and services. Go to “Me” on the top right, then click “View Profile”, then select “Add Profile Section” and then click "Featured".

Bonus tip: be consistent. Probably the most important step! Social Media is quite noisy with a lot going on, so it’s important to be consistent and regularly show up so that you are regularly building trust with your audience and become memorable.

I have put together a Weekly Personal Branding Checklist which tells you exactly what you should be doing on LinkedIn each week to build your Personal Brand. Click here to get yours: https://swelll.mykajabi.com/linkedin

If you have any questions about building your Personal Brand on LinkedIn, send me a message and I will see if I can help.