Optimizing Your LinkedIn Profile: Your Headline

With over 80 million members, LinkedIn is the big dog when it comes to professionally-focused social media sites. The site was created to help professionals make better use of their network and is a great way to not only connect with others, but to showcase your own talents and skills.

It all begins with your Professional “Headline”—the words that appear just below your name. I just did a quick review of my suggested connections on LinkedIn and saw that many simply use their job title. Here’s some examples:

Coaching Professional
Management Consulting Professional
Director of Human Resources
Entrepreneur and Visionary
Owner of [xxx] Company

To all of these, I say “So what do you actually do?” I’m probably not going to take the time to read these profiles, so I may have missed out on some great connections!

Here’s a reason LinkedIn calls this field the Professional Headline: it’s just like a headline in a newspaper. The key is to catch someone’s attention when they are just skimming.

You have 120 characters for this field…so use them to describe what you do. Here’s my headline:

Professional speaker and trainer on social media ? Meeting planner ? PR/marketing pro ?
My Blog: www.debkrier.com/blog

It’s 118 characters (and spaces) and is a description of what I do, rather than my job title. It also highlights my blog by giving that address right up front.

(Tip: The ? symbol was typed by holding down the Alt key and pressing the number 4 on my number keypad. There are many Alt characters you can add to your LinkedIn Profile.)

So, why does this matter? Aside from getting someone’s attention at the very start, this information is shown when you hover over someone’s picture or name anywhere in LinkedIn. More importantly, when someone searches for a person on Google, it’s the first couple of lines in the results.

Use keywords in your headline that people understand. This isn’t the place for industry jargon. For example, don’t just say “coach”—describe how you work with people. Don’t say “photographer”—tell what you focus on: professional headshots, wedding portraits, architecture and so on.

It’s especially important if you’re in the job market NOT to use your prior job title as your headline. Don’t limit yourself! You may also want to exclude the words entrepreneur, consultant or freelancer from your headline. Don’t give a potential employer the impression that you like being on your own—and may not even be looking for full-time employment.

Your LinkedIn headline is truly the first impression that someone gets of you. Make it count!