If you had a way to create an advertisement that worked for you 24/7/365 would you do it?  What if I said that it was free and that you could get it done in a few hours?  Would you do it then?  What if I told you that it reached nearly 100 million Americans, most of whom were in business?  What then?

I’m talking about LinkedIn.

I know, you already have a LinkedIn profile and you haven’t gotten any business from it, have you?  So, why should you put any more time into it? I’ll bet that if I looked at your profile, I could find at least 5 ways that you could improve your profile to the point where it could bring you business.  If this interests you at all, read on.

Here are the 5 areas that you need to look at with an eye towards improvement:

1. Please update your profile picture!  That prom picture from 1965 is so dated that when someone meets you in person who has only “met” you online, there is going to be a big disconnect.  And make no mistake, the sole purpose of social media is to connect with large numbers of people online so that you can eventually meet a few face to face in order to conduct some business.
2. Think about your headline.  That’s the line right below your name. Most of you skip it or just say Realtor.  How about something like “Marin County’s Floating Home Specialist” or “San Francisco Luxury Home Sales Leader”?  These utilize the key words that people might be using in a search on LinkedIn as well as on major search engines.  Yes, LinkedIn profiles are indexed by Google, Bing and others.  You might as well take advantage of that.
3. LinkedIn allows you to have a customized URL that goes to your profile.  Take advantage of that by creating a URL that reflects your name or your specialty.  For instance, my Linkedin URL is http://www.LinkedIn.com/in/JerryKidd I include this in my email signature and other places so that people can have an easy to type or remember way to see my LinkedIn profile.
4. Create a Summary that sells your services in a short paragraph.  Think of this as the response that you would give someone when they ask “Why should I hire you?”  Since most people are pressed for time these days, you have little chance of getting them to read your entire profile (where they can learn just how awesome you are) unless you can entice them quickly.  The Summary is just the place for that to happen.  Sadly, too many of you don’t have anything there.
5. Now it’s time to look at your work experience.  This is the section of your LinkedIn profile that tends to look like a standard resume.  Resist that temptation! If you specialize in a certain type of real estate, be sure to list examples of your successes with past clients.  Put emphasis on how you solved their problems.  So, if you have worked for XYZ Realty for any length of time, put that in, but then go on to explain how you helped your clients.

So that’s the five I promised you.  Next week I’ll give you some more LinkedIn pointers.  If you take the time to do these simple steps now, your LinkedIn profile will go a long way to becoming an effective part of your Digital Marketing Plan.  Next week’s tips will finish the job for you!