When I was a kid and the local fair rolled into town, the main booth we would go to was called the “Win a Goldfish”. What seemed like hundreds of glass jars were laid out before me and in some of them were goldfish in water. For a few pennies, you got 3 attempts to land a ping-pong ball in one of the jars containing a goldfish and then take it home.
One of us always seemed to proudly be walking home, plastic bag in hand with our goldfish prize. Sadly our triumph was short lived as , a goldfish is not a hardy pet and usually only survived a few days.
Nowadays our connection to ‘goldfish’ has slipped from days to seconds.
According to research, the advent of the smartphone and unlimited access to the internet and social media has reduced our attention spans by a third in the last 15 years to just over 8 seconds.
That’s 1 second less than that of a goldfish!
It has long been reported that the average read time of a resume is a matter of a few seconds as well. By extension, your LinkedIn profile could be faced with the same challenge so make sure to give the reader a reason for sticking around.
Humans are naturally visual and , today even more so. Your LinkedIn profile has a distinct advantage over the regular resume because you can make it appear 3D with the use of visual media.
In “How to Hog the LinkedIn Limelight With 3D Activity (Part 1)” I outlined all the different types of visual media available to you that can be embedded in to your LinkedIn profile.
In part 2 I will be outlining where media can be placed in your profile and how to use media in your day to day LinkedIn activity
5 Areas to 3D Your Profile
1. Summary
One of the critical and often under used areas of your LinkedIn profile is the Summary. This is one of the most viewed sections after your headshot and headline.
You have up to 2,000 characters in this area to tell your personal brand story. This is a golden opportunity to effectively communicate
- who you are,
- what you do
- who you do it for
- the impact you have
- why it is important
Adding in some visual media can emphasize that story, make the profile pop out like 3D, and thus help you stand out from others who claim to offer the same as you.
You can add multiple media here (as explained in the Part 1 article), but be cautious with overloading this section. Place only two effective media links like for example , a welcome video and a slidedeck. More could , distract the reader with too many choices. These sit side-by- side at the bottom of your written summary and round off the section.
Be sure that they represent your personal brand well as they are likely to be the most viewed looked at visual media in your profile.
2. Experience
This can be similar to the Summary but here you have an opportunity to make the visual content more role and company specific to underline your responsibilities and achievements. Always be careful not to share proprietary information.
Share other work related information here such as: PDF copies of letters of recommendation (especially if you have not been able to get a LinkedIn recommendation from the person);. certificates and awards and work relevant photos.
3. Updates
A few thoughtful, well written lines accompanied with a link to an article with an image can make an update stand out and get a lot more engagement than just words on their own.
Uploading the image separately will make it five times larger and ensure it gets noticed.
Making your update images 5 times larger
- Write your comments or question in the update.
- Copy and paste the web link to the article or webpage that you are referring to.
- A mini-image of the article and the image associated with it appears below your comments. It has an X in the top right hand corner. Click on that to delete it. The article link will shrink to an automatically generated lnkd.in url link.
- In the top right hand corner is the symbol for an image. Click on that and upload the image. It then appears significantly larger than the mini-image previously.
- Hit the Share button.
One recently successful example of using images has been Candice Galek, CEO of Bikiniluxe.com, who has been posting images of models wearing of her clothing line. These images caused a huge response, both negative and positive, and generated millions of dollars of free media coverage.
4. Pulse Publishing
This is LinkedIn’s own blog platform within the network. It is definitely a place that should use to share and highlight your expertise and thought leadership. Suffice to say there is a lot that can be done here and this blog platform will be the topic of Part 3 in my series be a separate article all on its own. Watch for “How to Hog the LinkedIn Limelight With 3D Activity (Part 3)”.
5. Rest of the Profile
A number of the other profile sections can also provide links to outside web resources, but not display the visual nature of the link.
Our noisy media rich worlds or the goldfish statistic should be reason enough for you to consider the use of visual media to garner enough attention to stop someone from scrolling right past you.
It is not a replacement for good content. You still need to engage the reader once you have stopped them with your visuals. But do not let the lack of visuals make you invisible.
Read “How to Hog the LinkedIn Limelight – Part 1” by clicking here.
P.S. Do you have 20 seconds to answer two questions for me about personal branding? If so please take the survey by clicking here. Thank you
There are 22 key areas on your LinkedIn profile that you can edit and brand to stand out more. In fact a full personally branded LinkedIn profile can increase opportunities by up to 40 times according to LinkedIn. In our free report “5 Steps to Boosting Your Personal Brand on LinkedIn” you can get a head start – click here to access the free report.