Put Your Best Foot Forward on LinkedIn

BY ERIN MCFEETERS

LinkedIn is the world’s largest professional network in the world, with over 700 million users. As a Realtor®, you can be networking, generating leads, and growing your industry knowledge.

“It’s social networking for business,” said Adam Binder, Founder and CEO of Creative Click Media, a full-service digital marketing agency in Manahawkin. Binder looks at LinkedIn as a platform for people “looking to generate leads, to promote their business, and looking to connect with other professionals.”

If you’re just getting started with LinkedIn, the first task on your to-do list is setting up your LinkedIn profile—visit linkedin.com/ home to join now.

“Your LinkedIn profile tells your professional story, and often serves as a first impression for prospective clients, recruiters or hiring managers,” said Yamini Kasera, Principal Product Manager at LinkedIn. “With many professionals working remotely, accurately representing your capabilities and highlighting your experience online is a key way to land opportunities.”

PROFILE BASICS

Profile Photo

According to Kasera, LinkedIn members who have a profile photo receive up to 21 times more profile views than a member who does not. It’s vital to have a profile photo that fits LinkedIn’s recommended specifications. Photos must be between 400 x 400 pixels and 7680 x 4320 pixels, a PNG or JPEG file with a maximum file size of 8MB. For the best results, choose a photo that does not require too much cropping.

Kasera recommends “making sure your profile photo embodies who you are as a professional, but also makes you approachable and shows a bit of your personality.”

When choosing a photo, keep in mind that LinkedIn is for networking with business professionals so do not use a photo you would use on other platforms such as Facebook or Instagram.

Background Photo

Similar to Facebook and Twitter, LinkedIn has the option to add a header or background image behind your profile photo. Much like the profile photo, your background photo must fit LinkedIn’s size specifications of 1584 x 396 pixels.

“You can utilize [the background photo], and I think most people don’t realize or don’t know how to make it look nice because it requires special dimensions,” said Binder. “My advice would be if you can’t do it yourself either use a service software like Canva or just hire a graphic designer to do that one piece for you because that’s a great piece of digital real estate and it’s so cheap to get right.”

About and Featured

The about section of your profile is a brief overview of your experience in the industry and your special skills. You can write it yourself, or LinkedIn generates it for you based on your listed job experience. In either case, make sure there are no grammatical errors—have a colleague or Grammarly.com double-check what you have written. Keep it concise with key experiences and skills that are most important to you.

“They don’t need to know your life story and everything you have ever done,” said Binder. “What is it on the other end that is going to make them excited and want to work with you.”

Highlight the work you are most proud of in the featured section of your profile. You can share anything from an article you wrote about the industry or a video from your YouTube channel. “Showcasing your previous work history and experience is a great way to reinforce why you’re the right fit for the job,” said Kasera.

Experience

This section serves as a mini resume to add all of your past jobs, education, and volunteer experience. For each experience you add, write what you did and what your responsibilities were that way, when users are searching with specific keywords you could appear in the search results. The experience section is also where you can add your real estate license, designations, and certifications. LinkedIn will also provide you with

LEVEL UP YOUR PROFILE

Skills

Add any of your soft and hard skills in the skills section of your profile. Include items such as industry knowledge, tools, technology, and interpersonal skills. Include skills such as residential real estate, mortgage rates, Microsoft Office, real estate photography, etc.

Endorsements

Ask colleagues and former clients to endorse your skills or write a recommendation.

“Featuring recommendations from former clients, managers, or coworkers is a great way to objectively highlight your work to people visiting your profile, and these endorsements can help you land new opportunities,” said Kasera. “Don’t be shy about asking for recommendations from professionals with whom you have a close relationship, and perhaps offer one in return to maintain and foster those relationships going forward.”

URL

Many LinkedIn users are unaware that you can customize your LinkedIn profile URL. You can change it to your name but, “a lot of times your name is taken so you can put your name-Realtor ® , which adds a keyword and definitely makes it more memorable,” said Binder.

BUILD YOUR NETWORK

Now that your profile is in tip-top shape, it’s time to grow your professional community. To start, connect with your friends, family, former clients, and colleagues—anyone that knows you best and can vouch for your work. LinkedIn will also provide you with recommended connections, much like suggested friends on Facebook.

Then follow industry leaders such as the National Association of Realtors® and Freddie Mac to build your industry knowledge and find new connections. You can also join groups on LinkedIn based on interest, industry, and location—groups are also a great place to find potential clients.

“Next, start engaging your network by posting on LinkedIn,” said Kasera. “This could be as simple as sharing an interesting article related to your industry with a few of your key takeaways, or commenting or “liking” posts to show your support.”