LinkedIn is the largest business-oriented networking website in the world, with over 700 million members in over 200 countries. According to LinkedIn statistics, there were 12.7 million LinkedIn users in Australia as of April 2022, which accounted for 48.7 per cent of its entire population.

A professionally written LinkedIn profile allows you to create an online professional brand, showcase your profile, expertise and achievements, and help open doors to networks and career opportunities. LinkedIn’s features are constantly being updated to increase its capabilities, and many are free with a Basic account. Subscribing to Premium subscriptions up the ante on your job searches, and lead generation and, if you are a recruiter, helps you find and hire talent. Here are the top LinkedIn strategies for professionals.

Choose a decent profile picture

One of the most essential elements of a LinkedIn profile is your profile picture. It is your introduction to other users, helps to build your personal brand, and can enhance your referral and response rates. LinkedIn offers some advice on choosing the right profile pic, but some quick tips include ensuring your photo:

• Is high resolution.
• Is recent.
• Doesn’t have anyone else in the shot.
• Highlights your face (it should take up 60 per cent of the photo).
• Is taken by someone else (avoid selfies).
• Looks like you!

Include a background photo

This is another important visual element of your profile, and sits at the top of your profile page. It helps tell your professional story, makes your profile more visually appealing, and enables you to stand out to recruiters, prospective clients, future employers and other LinkedIn users.

Maximise your headline

Your profile headline sits at the top of the page and is another chance for you to enhance your personal brand. Impactful headlines typically include more than just a job title. You can use it to showcase your role, your skills and experience, why you do what you do, what you are capable of, and what inspires you.

Leverage your summary

Surprisingly, many LinkedIn users don’t include a summary. But it’s a valuable piece of LinkedIn real estate! It is an excellent opportunity to set yourself apart from everyone else and inject some personality into your profile. It is a personal piece of content marketing and a great platform to sell yourself, from why your skills matter, to how your experience has shaped you, what motivates you, and what your career aspirations are.

Be careful using buzzwords

Buzzwords are terms regularly used in business to boost morale, gain attention, and describe social and cultural situations. They often change over time to reflect trends in how people talk to one another and what attributes are most desirable in a particular business. However, the overuse of business jargon can lead to negative reactions, from frustration to boredom and confusion. Here are some of the most over-used buzzwords, according to LinkedIn.

That said, it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t necessarily include these in your profile. However, one of the LinkedIn strategiesrecommended is that you back them up with tangible examples, including how you describe yourself, your career history, and your skills and experience.

Grow your network

Another one of the valuable LinkedIn strategies is to sync your profile with your mobile address book. This enables LinkedIn to identify which of your contacts are already using LinkedIn and is an easy way to find and connect with professional contacts and grow your network. You can select who you’d like to connect with and who you’d like to invite to join LinkedIn, and you can also turn off syncing anytime.

List your relevant skills

LinkedIn offers a super-efficient way of including your skills on your profile. You simply scroll through the options available and identify those that are relevant to you. This will help boost your headline and summary and provide a platform for other users to endorse you. But keep them relevant! A long list of skills that aren’t reflective of who you are and what you’ve done may come across as vague or even unsubstantiated.

Showcase your services

Another handy LinkedIn feature is their “Services” feature which helps those who work for smaller businesses (like freelancers and consultants) showcase what they offer. It’s a great way to boost visibility in search results.

Generally, a potential client submits a project request to a provider, and the provider then responds with a proposal to express interest in the project. Once the client receives a desirable proposal, the provider and client agree on the terms of the project. The provider then completes the work. Payment for project completion happens through the service provider’s typical process outside of LinkedIn.

Use the Skills Assessment tool

This feature on LinkedIn enables you to demonstrate the level of the skills you’ve added to your profile by completing assessments specific to skills such as technical, business and design skills. A typical assessment consists of fifteen multiple choice questions, and each tests at least one concept or sub-skill. You can then display a Verified Skills badge on your profile. Find out more about the complete list of available skill assessments and sample questions here.

Ask for endorsements

In terms of LinkedIn strategies, endorsements from other LinkedIn members can increase your credibility and substantiate your skills and experience. You simply go through your network and identify connections you’d like to endorse. This can often lead to them returning the favour. You can also request an endorsement from your relevant contacts via a message.

Request recommendations

Recommendations take things a step further. These are personal testimonials written to illustrate the experience of people who have worked with you. Although you can only request one recommendation from a connection at a time, there is no limit to the total number of recommendations you can request or receive.

Share content

Content that you produce and share is another one of the valuable LinkedIn strategies worth considering, as having an active role in your LinkedIn network can add another dimension to your profile. Whether it is white papers, case studies, E-books, blogs, comments or other branded content, it can give others personal insights and demonstrate your commitment and passion. Long-form content can also enhance your expertise and thought leadership credentials.