How to Optimize Your LinkedIn Profile for Greater Visibility and Success

1. Personal branding with LinkedIn
2. LinkedIn Basic or Premium?
3. How personal can a LinkedIn profile be?
4. The creator mode
5. Conclusion: Here's how you get started

"Are you also on LinkedIn?" You probably hear this question regularly at events or networking functions. Never has it been easier to connect with interesting people and build long-term professional relationships. LinkedIn now has 830 million members and over 58 million registered companies. LinkedIn has proven to be a relevant platform for generating leads, 277% more effective than Facebook and Twitter.

A well-maintained and professional LinkedIn network is not only an absolute must-have for freelancers and entrepreneurs, but also an exciting opportunity for employees to present their expert knowledge to the outside world. It is crucial that you optimize your profile as much as possible - only then can you fully exploit the potential of LinkedIn and achieve your personal or business goals. Whether in lead generation, employer branding, or branding - LinkedIn is a growing social network and offers you many opportunities to draw attention to yourselves as a person or to your company. You're wondering what makes a successful LinkedIn profile? Keep reading.

Personal branding with LinkedIn

Personal branding is on everyone's lips - but what's behind this buzzword? Personal branding can also be described as "what people say about you when you're not in the room." Through personal branding, you shape your own personal brand and position yourselves proactively as experts in a particular field.

As a personal brand, you regularly provide valuable content for your community and expand it step by step. An optimized LinkedIn profile provides the basis for successful personal branding and is therefore indispensable for anyone with professional ambitions. But what constitutes a professional profile on LinkedIn? Completeness, topicality, and a clear key message play a decisive role.

LinkedIn Basic or Premium?

With the basic membership of LinkedIn, all the important possibilities of the platform are initially open to you. If you are actively looking for employees, want to connect with relevant investors or expand your professional network, the premium version offers you additional exciting features.

As a premium member, you can, for example, send messages to members without being connected (up to five free InMails possible per month) or analyze who has visited your profile. If you want to build a personal brand or are looking for a job or employees, a premium membership will be beneficial for you.

Did you know? LinkedIn is the largest international professional social network. Accordingly, you should definitely create your profile in different languages. This works by clicking on "Edit Public Profile" on your profile and there you save the information of your profile in all languages that are relevant to your target group.

Always adapt your profile to your target group. If your target group is primarily international, then ideally set your main profile in English and save additional profile variants in other languages. If you want to interact and connect with people from the DACH region, then it makes sense to set up your main profile in German.

In the "Edit Public Profile" function, you can set up your profile in different languages.

How personal can a LinkedIn profile be?

Your profile is your digital business card. Always make sure that all information is up to date and that your profile is meaningful and complete for visitors. Fill out all information fields that LinkedIn provides you.

With a professional profile, you differentiate yourself from competitors in your industry and thereby gain a clear competitive advantage in the employer or employee market. Personal branding is about building a personal brand - so feel free to show your private side as well. Address your personal values and draw on experiences or events from your past to make posts more authentic and approachable.

People follow people - even though LinkedIn is a professional business network, you are allowed to show your personality (with edges and corners).

The creator mode

If your goal is to actively build a community on LinkedIn, then you should switch your profile to LinkedIn's creator mode. With one click, people can follow you directly instead of connecting with you. In your profile, followers instead of contacts are displayed accordingly. In creator mode, LinkedIn displays your posts in your activity box and gives them a prominent place on your profile.

The following tips are based on a creator profile on LinkedIn. You activate this by clicking on your profile and then scrolling to the dashboard. There you can activate the creator mode.

Pay attention to these content points when designing your LinkedIn profile:

• Profile picture: Choose a photo where your face is close and easily recognizable and that evokes sympathy. You can also incorporate your branding colors here. By the way: A professional photo leads to 14 times more profile views. Therefore, it's worth hiring a professional photographer for this.
• Profile slogan: This short slogan appears under your name and reflects the key message you represent on LinkedIn. It can contain your current position, your mission/vision, or even a very concrete naming of your target group. Choose a short and meaningful profile slogan that reflects your topics and values. Use terms that people google and use the language of your target audience. You can easily edit your slogan in your profile view. Simply click on the little pencil in the top right corner of your profile box. Under your name, you can type your individual key message in the "Profile Slogan" field.
• Header image: The title image in the format 1584 × 396 pixels offers a wonderful area to draw attention to you or your company. Choose a picture of you in action or use elements of your corporate design to create a recognition effect. On the title image of your profile, you can refer to other social media channels, give references examples, or formulate a clear call-to-action for profile visitors.

An example of a successful LinkedIn profile: SimpleClub founder Alexander Giesecke.

• Hashtags in the profile: Use hashtags in your profile to gain more visibility within your industry or to your (niche) topics. You can use up to 5 different hashtags here.
• Links in the profile: Include important links, for example, your company's website. Here you can individually adjust your URL. Instead of naming the link "Our Website," get creative and write, for example, "Learn more exciting things about me here." Make sure you include your contact information and your professional email address in your profile.
• The "In Focus" area: Put your most clicked posts, PR articles, or other external links in focus by pinning them in this bar. 
• The info area: Tell your personal story, which profile visitors cannot already deduce from your résumé - for example, what are your personal passions and how did you come to what you are currently doing professionally. Bring profile visitors along on your journey so far and indicate where you also want to develop in the future.
• Professional experience: By indicating your current position, you will be easier to find and increase the number of your connection requests fivefold. List your professional stations in as much detail as possible. Additional links or media files provide profile visitors with even more information about your expertise.
• Education: Show your network what kind of education you have. Important: Highlight special results - for example, an exceptionally good grade point average.
• Certificates and certificates: Upload professional certificates, training proofs, or training certificates and provide even more confirmation of your skills.
• Volunteering: Show your profile visitors how you get involved voluntarily. 
• Skills and ratings: Add special skills and have them confirmed by people with whom you have already worked.
• Languages: Indicate which languages and language levels you have.

Good to know: LinkedIn allows you to download your profile under the "More" tab as a PDF résumé - especially practical if you are currently looking for a job.

Regular postings are essential if you want to build your own community. Here you will find information, how to create an optimal LinkedIn post. Everyone is an expert in a topic and can share valuable know-how and inspiration. 

Find your topics and create a content mindmap to post interesting contributions around your topics. For a structured workflow, it is helpful to plan posts in advance to get into a regular rhythm. 

On OMR Reviews you will find a selection of suitable Social Media Suites-tools that will help you. By the way: Emojis play an important role on LinkedIn. Use them to visually divide sections or underline statements in your posts. But be aware of the serious character of the platform and only use emojis specifically.
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⁠We have put together a small selection of Social Media Suites-tools for you:

• Canva Pro
• Sinch Engage
• Hootsuite
• Facebook Creator Studio
• Later

Conclusion: Here's how you get started

So, now it's your turn. As you have learned, LinkedIn offers numerous possibilities to present your own skills and connect with exciting people. If you don't already have a LinkedIn profile, create one directly or revise your current profile. It's worth it! 

If you want to use LinkedIn for active customer outreach and lead generation, these tips on the topic Social Selling will help.

Pro tip 1

Here's how to customize your profile URL: Click on your profile view and choose "edit public profile". You can then click on the little pencil next to your profile URL at the top right and edit this link individually. 

Pro tip 2

Create badges for your public profile and embed them at suitable spots - for example, on your company's website.