_Most senior executives are relatively new to the social networking and the social media wave sweeping both the business world and that of professionals in transition. The reaction of some has been one of skepticism and disregard for the value it could offer, and reasonably so. How could a forty million person networking site replace the valuable contacts they already have in place with fellow C-level colleagues? It can’t and it shouldn’t.  They can assume that they already know who they need to know and those contacts will open doors and introduce them to others. 

It is understandable that high performing, highly successful professionals who have gotten all their positions through colleagues, mentors and connections may not understand the value of LinkedIn to their brand. LinkedIn’s most overlooked and obvious function is to augment our brand with free online publicity in the world’s largest yellow pages known as Google.  Every executive needs to build their professional brand visibility online because that’s where everyone goes to snoop on their background and track record before meeting them. According to a 2007 survey by executive networking firm ExecuNet reveals that “more than 80% of executive recruiters said they routinely use search engines to learn more about candidates”.   Doing a Google name search brings up first and foremost a professional’s LinkedIn profile because of the way Google has set its search algorithms.

I suppose one could leave it to chance as to what comes up under your name on Google but why take that risk when a few simple steps can immensely improve your online first impression and professional brand by creating a compelling professional profile on LinkedIn? 

Creating Your Profile as a Marketing Brochure

LinkedIn is not your resume, though it is designed to entice you to think thus. Falling into the long chronological litany of a resume-style profile on LinkedIn does not do anyone’s brand justice. Leave out dated and irrelevant work experience to focus attention on the most salient part of your experience. Do not go into long detail rather keep the descriptions to titles and companies and perhaps a one-liner overview of your scope of responsibility. But do use every feature, application and tool offered by LinkedIn as they makes sense for your particular situation. 

Writing a Branded Summary

 Many make the mistake of omitting the Summary portion in LinkedIn by simply not noticing it in their rush to fill the work history portion that LinkedIn provides.  Others resort to dumping the top part of their resume into that section.  As it bears the same category title (Summary) often used at the top of a resume it may appear to be a logical thing to do but it is not good branding. A well branded LinkedIn Summary reads more like a narrative that one would read about a conference presenter, or the back of the flap bio of a book author.  It is engaging, personable and interesting not a dry litany of canned business buzz words about P&L, M&A, negotiations, revenues, product launches, market share, cost cutting- data that every top performer can recite. That’s not to say this information is not necessary but it needs to be couched in branded terms that differentiates you from the other executives in this economy seeking the very same opportunities that you are.

Making Recommendations Count

For an accomplished executive, employed or unemployed, to have a litany of recommendations on LinkedIn may at first blush appear overkill, redundant, or vainglorious. Your reputation stands without others having to reiterate or reinforce that one is highly competent, qualified, successful and proven. Or does it?  This is certainly a situational decision unique to each person on the quantity, type and character of the recommendations that they use on LinkedIn or not. However, more often than not, others are better at extolling our virtues and accomplishments than we are. Further, recruiters readily admit to being more interested in what others say about potential candidates than what the candidate says about his or herself.

Just as importantly, writing selected recommendations not just for those who ask but unbidden for those who count will boost your brand in the process. If you are connected to high profile, well-placed, powerful business professionals that you know on LinkedIn, then saying good things about them reflects well upon yourself as well as builds their appreciation.

Using Applications to Demonstrate Your Unique Abilities

Fred R. Barnard in Printers' Ink, 1927, promoting the use of images in advertisements said that, "One Picture is Worth Ten Thousand Words."  We could add that Amazon book recommendations, SlideShare presentations, Google Doc white papers or Typepad blog posts will do the same for your LinkedIn Profile. Rather than using hundreds of words to describe your talent, abilities and uniqueness, providing actual demonstrations will make a more credible impression. The applications serve as testimonials to what you say about yourself. In December 2008, LinkedIn launched its Applications which are simply links to professional tools accessible to anyone online.

Those who had been blogging using Typepad or Wordpress, posting slides to Slideshare and articles to Google Docs just had to click on the LinkedIn buttons to make them show up in their profiles. For the rest of us, it is a process of expanding our presence online using these social media tools and then linking them back to LinkedIn. It is definitely harder to ignore blogging when it can build your brand value on LinkedIn.

 You Say It’s Your Birthday?

After six long years discouraging people from posting any personal information such as an address, or phone number, last month LinkedIn created a section called, yes, Personal Information.  You now can announce the date of your birthday, marital status, address and phone number.  Leveraging this new category into brand building is of dubious merit at the moment. It seems more like your effort should be in avoiding the pitfalls of that arise from giving personal disclosure such as age discrimination, and invasion of privacy.

Using the Polls and Events functions to ask people to vote on business issues or let everyone know of upcoming events you are attending makes more business sense than providing the date of your birth. Since LinkedIn seems to have a solid relationship with Google, then videos and photo galleries cannot be far behind.  We had better start preparing our YouTube channels now.

The bottom line, personal branding using LinkedIn is a constantly moving target with new tools, widgets and applications to use that didn’t exist a month ago.  We are challenged to take what will work for each of us to grow and expand our image, visibility and self-marketing online.