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7 Forgotten Features That Impress Prospects On LinkedIn

Jamie Shanks
Jamie Shanks

The buyer doesn’t want to be sold; the buyer wants to be wowed. Have some sympathy for your prospects – the Internet is constantly waving all kinds of things in their faces. Even when the buyer registers a strong desire to purchase, countless distractions can derail your progress. It’s time for you to be the distraction.

Just as you would for a special meeting in person, you need to lace up and dress up your LinkedIn profile. Your competition is roughly 400 million other LinkedIn members, so being one in a million is not going to cut it. Your goal is to be absolutely and singularly unforgettable. Here’s how you’re going to do it.

1. Fill Out Your Professional Gallery

Showcase your professionalism. The first step in standing out is converting your profile from a business card into a destination that sparks conversations with prospects. Edit your profile to add documents, photos, links, videos and presentations. Your LinkedIn profile can include e-books, blogs, infographics, explainers and more. Be creative. Find or create your best work and add it to each of these areas.

Linkedin Professional Gallery

2. Customize Your Profile URL

Brands have branded URLs. It’s that simple. In a few steps, you can personalize your LinkedIn URL. Make sure you add this new link to all your various forms of contact data, like your email signature and business cards, both virtual and physical. It helps people find you, and at the same time, it makes you more memorable.

Custom URL

3. Leverage LinkedIn Publisher

You keep in touch with your prospects using status updates and tweets, but you make an impression when you discuss topics in depth. That’s the point of LinkedIn Publisher, a platform that helps you develop a following and a reputation as a problem-solver. A study from Forrester found that 65 percent buyers don’t choose the first vendor they speak to, but the first vendor who added value.

LinkedIn Posts

4. Add an Exciting Background Photo

This simple change delivers the biggest impact for the time invested. Most people just post a photo and move on. Deliver more information about your industry, your interests or your personality instantly. After you do this, profiles without a background look incomplete. You can download over 50 free LinkedIn backgrounds here to attract buyers in your specific industry.

LinkedIn Background

5. Rank Higher in Search With SEO for Your Profile

Keyword selection and placement are still critical tools if you want to be found by motivated prospects. Don’t forget that algorithms change frequently, so you need to keep up with what works best at the moment.

LinkedIn keywords

6. Make Notes Under the Relationship Tab

Forgive yourself for overlooking this. This section is easy to miss on the web and doesn’t appear at all on the mobile app. Directly below the connection’s photo and summary are two tabs: Relationship and Contact Info. The Relationship tab is where you can write notes about your contacts, add tags to categorize them, and specify where you met them. There is also a reminder scheduler so you can be sure to contact again at the right time.

LinkedIn Relationship

7. Write the Perfect, Value-Centered Headline

This is no time to be modest. Your headline shouldn’t read: “Sales manager @ Boring.com.” Everyone does sales, in one way or another. Craft the perfect headline to grab attention and hold onto it by making it clear how you are going to help the prospect.

For examples, check out this in-depth video here.

What No One Is Telling You

Odds are, no one is going to tell you if you’re boring. Only one out of every 20 customers will give you feedback that is even slightly negative. It’s just human nature to avoid conflict, so you have to be sure you are making the best impression from the very beginning. Remember, your personal brand needs regular attention to keep it fresh and exciting.

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