A LinkedIn profile is your key to controlling both your own professional reputation and helping control the image of the company you represent. A company with a LinkedIn presence, but few employee profiles connected to it, screams out ‘We don’t understand digital media!’ and can negatively affect the first impressions of prospective clients and potential new hires.
Effective Profiles Mean Positive First Impressions
As I have written here previously, over half the UK working population have a LinkedIn account. Yet this still means a large number of employees are leaving their professional reputations open to interpretation from new clients. Moreover, the companies they represent may end up with profiles that look like rooms with no furniture: not a great first impression.
Align and Optimise Profiles
To best take advantage of LinkedIn and its potential to pull in enquiries from Google searches, employees must have profiles that are both aligned to the company message and optimised to top the search rankings. When employees add their company name to their Current Experience, LinkedIn automatically pulls in the company logo and they become followers of the company.
Myth: Employees Are No More Likely to be Poached on LinkedIn
Employees who engage with LinkedIn are not automatically at risk from being poached by rivals, contrary to what many companies believe. Instead, these employees help reflect their part in the positive feedback loop of being connected to their employer. Employees feel better connected and in tune with their workplace, outsiders see the company LinkedIn profile full of positive interaction, and the result is a win-win-win for employees, employers, and prospective clients. Research by Ciceron backs this up in numbers with significant gains in the metrics that demonstrate employee loyalty and will to work.
Source: http://www.ciceron.com/2015/02/employee-advocacy-come-pride-not-pity/
Brand Ambassadors: Profiles Make a Big Impact
There are many digital access points to your organisation today, through your website for example. LinkedIn should be at the top of the list. How you look on LinkedIn at the employee level (profiles) or corporate level (company page) is now critical. Profiles that are congruent and consistent with your company and core value propositions make you look forward-thinking and help to generate trust, professionalism and credibility. Your current employees are your most powerful advocates and they do the heavy lifting in terms of advertising your company brand and culture.
Don’t Push, Lead by Example
I personally don’t recommend that companies demand interaction from their employees on LinkedIn, but I would start by educating them about the huge benefit it can have, and the best way to do this is to lead by example.
In short, LinkedIn is the canvas, you are the artist, and you have the power to put a masterpiece on show to the world.
Is your profile making a great first impression? Get your own FREE profile health check.
Miles Duncan, CEO & Founder of the LinkedIn Success Systems
A unique and effective business development system that shows you how to use LinkedIn.
