Well change is a constant so they say…..
In a rework of the immortal words from Britney Spears
“Oops, they did it again
They played with your profile, your personal brand got lost in the shift”
Yes (he says scratching his head), LinkedIn has redesigned the less than year old profile look and you are going to have to change your content because of it.
Watch the full explanation video by clicking here or copy and paste
https://share.vidyard.com/watch/frd9zTE9W6sMqPFKdsd46c
As you can see from the comparison image above everything has moved to the left and there are some even more important tweaks. This new look has been around for a few weeks and is continuing to be rolled out as you read this. Which could mean you may not yet have it. If you can see someone else’s profile (or your own) like Profile B then you have the new look.
If you don’t but someone else does they are seeing your profile under the new look, which means there are……….
3 time-sensitive personal brand actions you MUST take now with regards to your LinkedIn profile;
1. Header Image & Headshot
Hopefully, you previously took advantage of this great piece of personal brand real estate and placed a relevant image at the top of your profile.
If you placed important information though on the left-hand side this is now obscured by your repositioned and increased in size headshot. Take a moment to look and either re-position your header image or get a new one created.
At the same time check that your headshot is still crystal clear, it has increased in size by about 20% so you need to ensure the uploaded image has enough resolution for that increase.
Worry less about how the header image looks on mobile. You can try to get very clever with the design but to be honest I think most people do not notice it. Because of the way mobile looks, it is highly unlikely they will be making the same left justified look.
2. The Summary
It was annoying when the previous design cut the Summary from full view to only the first 2 lines, I really feel it lessened the value of the Summary to a degree and promoted scrolling versus clicking and reading.
WELL, (SOME) GOOD NEWS!!!
It is not back to full view but the Summary has been expanded and now you get another line to tell your personal brand story before the ‘Show more’ link appears.
The challenge though is that they still made it a complete run on of words. So if you had optimized your old Summary to make the first two lines end with a compelling reason to click on the See More, the cat may now be out of the bag with that extra line.
Check to see how your first 30-50 words look, the character count has gone from just over 200 to just over 300, may sound like not much but could convey a very different message.
And talking about messaging that brings me on to #3 and I think the best piece of news about this redesign. The reintroduction of visible visual media in the Summary.
3. Visual Media in the Summary
Now you may be one of the majority on LinkedIn that was not even aware you could upload visual media to your profile, both in the Summary and your Experience sections.
Well, you can. Previously it was hidden in the profile design from a year ago and now it’s back. Sadly though not without its challenges, after all it would not be LinkedIn unless they made it slightly irritating!
In the image example, you will see on my profile (or go to my profile here https://www.linkedin.com/in/paulcopcutt/ – are we connected by the way, if not let’s do that whilst you are there!) that I have two pieces of visual media, two videos, with text descriptions. Easy to see what they are and I also tell you.
Add a 3rd piece of visual media, like any of the following which LinkedIn Help says, are currently accepted;
The following file formats are supported:
Adobe PDF (.pdf)
Microsoft PowerPoint (.ppt/.pps/.pptx/.ppsx/.pot/.potx)
Microsoft Word (.doc/.docx/.rtf)
OpenOffice Presentation Document (.odp)
OpenOffice Documents (.odt)
Most .txt files
.jpg/.jpeg
.png
.bmp
.gif – this doesn’t support animation, however, the first frame will be extracted
.tiff
(Important: The file size may not exceed 300 MB. The maximum resolution for images in 120 megapixels).
VERSUS
And you end up with mini thumbnails, up to 6 of them. So small its hard to make out what they are and the text description disappears which to be frank makes then next to useless. I think many people will not even know what they are or scroll right past.
Visual media is a great opportunity to again showcase your personal brand on your profile above the fold (i.e. appears on the first screen look at your profile) so you will need to decide how.
My recommendation would be to choose two top quality pieces of media and add text. Alternatively, you could explain in the 3 lines of Summary that the mini thumbnails below are worth clicking on and hope they do.
So, find a few minutes today and make those changes and have your personal brand stand out a little more. There are a few other small changes which you may notice and I will cover in future LinkedIn tips and resources.
Have a brandtastic day!
P.S. Apologies for the hiatus from the LinkedIn tips and insights. Several of you kindly contacted me to ask if I was still doing them and yes the plan going forward is to be sharing them again regularly.
One of the reasons for my absence has been working on some in-depth client projects including a lot more LinkedIn consulting for clients, not only with profile branding but also carrying that brand messaging and feel to your posts and articles.
If you are a busy professional (too busy to work LinkedIn like you want to) whose success and income is dependent on the mastering of your personal brand and you want to understand how I can help let’s have a strategy session so I can show you, through the wonders of screen sharing, where I see the opportunity with your profile.
Tell me what you do, how you are using LinkedIn right now and what challenges you are facing. I will then set up an appointment if I can help I will tell you and if I can’t I will say so and point you in the right direction – sound fair? Complete the contact box by clicking here or e-mail me paul@charlesb32.sg-host.com