Shine Those Diamonds! Advice from Denise Quinlan on how to make our LinkedIn profiles stand out from the crowd

LinkedIn delivers the perfect opportunity to shine a light on our specialist skills, but in a more subtle way than on other social media channels. And yet, the task of fine-tuning our LinkedIn profile often struggles to make it to the top of the ‘to do’ list.  

In our latest Flexibility Matters Work Smart: WorkReady seminar, Collaborative Business Development expert and USP hunter Denise Quinlan nudged us into action with some great insights into how best to transform our LinkedIn profiles.  She highlighted just how hard it is to read the label when you are inside that bottle. (I think we would all agree that the hardest person to market is yourself). And social media just makes it more challenging to reach our targets – especially when we need to stand out from the crowd.

Denise transported us to South Africa’s Kimberley Diamond Mine to illustrate that we are all sitting on our own ‘diamonds’.  But we’re often far too close to our own stories to express our true value to new employers, influencers and industry peers.  We need to highlight our differentiators so we can demonstrate what we can bring to the party.  Once we understand our purpose, have identified our specific audience, and shown how we resolve challenges, we can start engaging with those LinkedIn prospects and contacts. It’s all about understanding our target audience’s issues and eliciting those gems of ours – ensuring a consistent message wherever we go.

And the familiar saying “a picture paints a thousand words” has never been more relevant than on LinkedIn, where images add the emotion.  So, the quality and impact of our profile photo is critical in this visual world – where seeing the whites of our eyes, for example, conveys trust. Likewise, posting articles and blogs helps to position ourselves as industry experts in our specialist field.

Great content, compelling photography and extracting hidden gems, or USPs, will help to foster the important connections we need. The right blend of words and images can not only underpin that all important career transition but take you to a whole new level of confidence.

For more top tips on creating the perfect LinkedIn profile – click HERE

And for some great top tips on confidence, click HERE