Your personal brand is everything about you. It’s your professional reputation, online image, offline image, your work style, and how you engage with everyone. To develop a personal brand, consider what you want someone to think of when they hear your name. What knowledge, skills, and talents do you want people to think about?

Right now, how do you think people would describe you? Does it match with what you want people to see you as? Using LinkedIn strategically will help develop your personal brand, increasing the chances that others view you how you want to be viewed.

Once you’ve decided how you’d like to be known, then you need to develop a plan to let it be known to the world. It is in the information you share and create, the comments you make on other’s posts, and most importantly, in your Profile. Regardless of what your personal brand is (or you want it to be), it’s important to use LinkedIn in the right way.

Be Yourself

The very best way to develop a personal brand is to be yourself. Authenticity is key! Include on your Profile the things you want to be known for. It’s ok to include some personal information, including your volunteer activities. After all, we work with those we know, like, and trust, and sharing appropriate personal information helps us to bond with people.

Focus on the Headline

On LinkedIn, your Headline is critical for how you want to be seen. Use it well because some people may never go past the headline when conducting a search for people with your knowledge and expertise.

Think of it like a newspaper headline. Use keywords and keyword phrases rather than sentences. You can separate items with characters like a pipe “|”, bullet “•”, or star “?” symbol. It looks better and differentiates each word or phrase. Don’t be shy on the headline! Catch the reader’s attention!

Brand Your LinkedIn URL

On LinkedIn, you can choose a unique URL to point to your profile. Most people use their name, which is a great way for people to find you if they are searching for your name. But, if someone is searching for a Paleo Nutrition Expert, will they find you? Consider using a keyword in the URL, but only if you are sure that you’re always going to be doing this. Otherwise, choose your name if available. If your name is fairly common, you may need to be creative by adding a middle initial or name.

Contribute Your Knowledge Regularly

Post often! But don’t panic – once or twice a week is adequate, but daily is ok, too. It’s also important to like, share and comment on items that your connections have shared on their status updates. If you have created a white paper, eBook, or blog post about your niche, share it on LinkedIn. Share other people’s work (with your added commentary) within your niche as well. By curating other people’s work, if up to your standards, you will get a reputation as the go-to person who can find the information people want about that topic.

Final Thoughts

Establishing a personal brand takes time, consistency, and true knowledge of your audience. But, LinkedIn is a fast way to be noticed if you use it regularly and use it strategically.