Every once in a while, even I am surprised by LinkedIn.
I serve as the VP of Programming for the American Marketing Association (AMA) Baltimore Chapter and I volunteered to update their LinkedIn Company Page. In order to do that, the position has to be in the Experience area on my LinkedIn Profile. Originally, I placed this position in my Volunteer Experience section (and I will keep it there since it truly is a volunteer position) but I also recently added it to my Experience section.
Here’s what surprised me: Within one day of this change, more than 100 people had viewed my Profile, I had received numerous likes and comments, had messages in my inbox, and voicemails on my phone. The image below shows how many times people viewed my profile at specific dates, and the high point — 102 to be exact — is a day after I added the new AMA position to my experience section. Depending on how your have your settings adjusted and how the people in your network have theirs set, you are likely to receive updates of some sort regularly alerting you to new things going on with your connections.
The other interesting number on this graph is the is the low-point. Our family was enjoying our week Cape May, NJ and I wasn’t very active on LinkedIn that week.
It’s easy to track how busy I have been on LinkedIn and with my in-person networking, training workshops, and posting online by tracking the views of my profile. When I’m busy and “out there” more views happen. When I sit behind my desk too many days in a row, the views go down.
If you create a Profile initially, you will see a spike in activity but if you don’t continue to tweak, post and engage you will find you can easily be overlooked. Out of sight, out of mind.
If you look at my LinkedIn Profile, you’ll notice that even though my AMA position is new. I was able to place it below my work at Intero Advisory (my paying job). Take a look at these important tools for updating your Profile.
The 
next to the title is your edit tool.
The 
allows you to add a link or file to the your Summary, Experience and Education sections.
The 
allows you to reorder your sections or your entries within a section.
The last tool (the up/down arrow) is the one that allows you to grab a whole section and move it up or down in your list. This is important to pay attention to. I also like to reorder the sections to make my Profile more interesting. I was talking with someone yesterday who has fabulous experience and is great at what she does, but she did not go to college. She stopped when she reached education and never finished her Profile. Yikes! Don’t do that. Build out the rest of your Profile, make it remarkable, stand out and then move the education section down to the bottom of your Profile. And, guess what, if you have experience, really highlight your accomplishments.
Also notice I have the AMA Baltimore logo. When you are adding the copy, look to see if the company or organization has a LinkedIn Company Page and choose that entry. The logo will automagically appear!
Ok, so what are the big takeaways?
Keep refreshing your Profile, use LinkedIn, stay active. Keep this in mind if you are in marketing, sales, business development or career transition. You make yourself more relevant if you are working on your “brand,” the brand called YOU. Don’t let yourself fade away on LinkedIn.
Make sure your employees’ Profiles are up to date and keep them that way. You’re trying to make your employees brand ambassadors, right? Their LinkedIn Profiles are a reflection on you and how relevant you are as an organization.
Updating, adding, and refreshing will keep you relevant and top of mind with your network. Don’t let your LinkedIn Profile go stale. Find a reason to update it at least once a month. For more information on creating or updating your LinkedIn Profile, check out our Resources.
