What's Wrong With Your LinkedIn Profile & How You Can Fix It

As a social platform solely focused on business and business connections, LinkedIn is where professionals can go to educate themselves about business and connect with others in their industry.

With over 500 million users, it’s often viewed as the premier source of content for professionals, which is why it’s so important to ensure your LinkedIn profile portrays you as a knowledgeable expert in your industry. Unfortunately, many professionals don’t know how to use LinkedIn correctly and are losing a great opportunity to leverage their digital sales and marketing presence.

Let’s look at three common mistakes and review some LinkedIn profile tips that will help you improve your page so you can grow leads, increase sales and outperform the competition.

It’s important to think about how your profile looks on LinkedIn. Do you have a professional headshot? Does your profile look like more than just a glorified resume? Are you promoting your company and sharing timely, valuable content that shows you know your industry?

What many professionals don’t realize is their name is likely more tied to LinkedIn than it is to their own website or company. That’s because LinkedIn puts a lot of effort into improving their page rankings on Google.

What does that mean for you? It’s highly likely if you type in your name or the name of your company into Google, the LinkedIn page will show up first before your company’s website or any other site where your information may be featured. That’s why you need your profile page to be the best representation of you and your company.

Create a Stronger LinkedIn Profile

• Use a professional headshot.
• Use the “Headline” field on your profile to let your customers know how you can help them.
• Use the “Professional Summary” section as an opportunity to pitch your customers, not a chance to list your achievements.
• Use the “Ask for a Recommendation” tool to gather testimonials from your contacts, current, and past clients. These recommendations have “social proof” behind them, meaning that when potential customers visit your page, they’ll recognize you as a trusted building materials expert.

Another important new part of LinkedIn for contractors is the addition of a feature that allows people to ask for suggestions for well-respected vendors. This adds a new level of engagement and opportunity to have your business featured on the site.

If you want to build a strong audience, you first need to build the right type of rapport with them. Instead of offering a sales pitch that goes straight to what you can do for a client, start with content that shows them how you can help.

As one of the best traffic drivers to business-to-business (B2B) websites, professionals engage with LinkedIn to find useful and informative content that is relevant to their industry. This is an audience that is also more likely to act and engage with your company once they are on your LinkedIn page or company website.

Become One of the Most Trusted Resources in Your Field

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LinkedIn wants to be the number one content source for professionals. That’s why the type of content that ranks well within the site is focused on bringing value to its users.

BWI Millwork has created a great approach to use social media as a strong part of their company’s online presence. They show custom orders before they’re shipped, behind the scenes tours and post interactive questions to engage their followers.

If you are lacking content of your own, it’s ok to share information from other respected resources. This shows your audience that you are looking to provide value. It also shows that you’re keeping current with the latest information about your product and you can be a trusted resource for solutions and advice.

LinkedIn advertising is a great addition to your content marketing plan that builds awareness, strengthens your reputation and helps position you as an industry expert.

It’s important to remember the 660 million people on LinkedIn are there because of their work. Advertising on LinkedIn gives you a captive audience of interested professionals who are on the site solely for the purpose of doing business.

Start Advertising

LinkedIn’s Campaign Manager is easy to use and will help you find the right type of advertising format you’re looking for (one or multiple images, video, text, etc.), set up your ads and target the right audience. They also offer some flexibility in how you are charged for advertising: cost per click (CPC), cost per mile (CPM) or cost per send (CPS).

You have the capability to have LinkedIn ads targeted directly to users based on many factors including their job title, industry, the company they work for or the LinkedIn groups they belong to.

Targeting to LinkedIn groups is a great benefit of their advertising model and gives you access to members of groups like Construction and Building Materials – Professionals and the BIM (Building Information Modeling) and Architecture, Engineering & Construction Projects and Jobs.

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Simply put, one of the most important things you can do is just be authentic. This means you are taking the time to understand your clients’ wants and needs. When you become authentically interested in your clients, you can:

1. Cater to your ideal customer.
2. Create consistent touchpoints to reach them.
3. Craft messages that will get responses and show you’re knowledgeable and helpful.
4. Continue to add value to your client.
5. Exceed expectations.

Attend Venveo’s LinkedIn Pipeline Accelerator Workshop

Our LinkedIn Pipeline Accelerator Workshop is the ideal event for sales and marketing professionals working in the building materials industry. Engage with industry thought leaders who will transform the way you think about sales growth.

How you sell is changing FAST. It's a fact. That's why the world's smartest building materials companies are joining our online event to learn what's new, what's hot and what's actually working RIGHT NOW to drive sales using digital. Now, it's your turn.

If you're a sales or marketing professional working in the building materials industry, the LinkedIn Pipeline Accelerator Workshop is YOUR event.

Click here to register for the LinkedIn Pipeline Accelerator Workshop.

LinkedIn Pipeline Accelerator will be an immersive and invaluable experience taking place in a full-day workshop in where you AND your entire team can join online.

Each session will be made up of engaging keynote presentations and panels from some of the brightest minds specializing in Sales, Marketing and LinkedIn. The conference is designed to take you on a step-by-step journey through every conversion point in LinkedIn — from generating awareness to converting those contacts into leads and sales to turning those sales into customers for life.

When you sign up, you get access for your entire team, including access to recordings. And as a bonus, you'll get a 45-minute 1-on-1 coaching session with your entire team.

Click here to register for the LinkedIn Pipeline Accelerator Workshop.

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