93. How can you upgrade your LinkedIn profile?
How can you upgrade your linkedIn profile? 🤝 As the founder of TripScout, Konrad Waliszewski has built a passionate user base of travellers. Hosts Phil and Lauren grill Konrad about his community’s trajectory—from initial fans to a group of thousands—to figure out the formula for uniting over a niche.
Episode transcription
Phil
Before we dive right into this episode, I wanted to let you know about an awesome freebie we just created, a shot list template. I am a big fan of good photography for any brand and shot lists are basically the critical planning steps for any photography process. I like to think of a shot list as a way to capture your essence for the photographer. The photographer's job is to make sure you look like you and your job is to give them the stage so that you can shine. You're probably investing good money into your photos, so you want to make sure that you're capturing every element of your brand while you've got the time with them. Unless you have a history with your photographer, they likely don't know much about you so a shortlist is a great way to get them up to speed. This template will help you lay it all out location actions, props and so much more. Check it out for free at http://philp.al/shotlist and take all the guesswork away for planning that photoshoot. Now onto the show.
Phil:
Before we dive right into this episode, I wanted to let you know about an awesome freebie we just created 100 Evergreen Content Ideas, a PDF. Many of us are content creators and know that in this day and age, you've got a post online to get ahead. But there are many roadblocks to posting. Roadblocks like maybe you're concerned that you'll run out of ideas or that people won't care or that it will take too long. writing content doesn't have to be hard. You don't need to reinvent the wheel. You just need to ask yourself the right questions. And this freebie is going to be your saving grace when you're stumped. If you've got a blog post that's long overdue crack this open choose a question and start writing for your medium. If you're lost for an Instagram caption, just look here for inspiration and get posting. Check it out at philp.al/100ideas and never wonder what to post online again. Now onto the show.
Hello, and welcome to Brand Therapy. I'm Phil.
Lauren
And I'm Lauren.
Phil
And this is the podcast where we help you position, build and promote your brands. Oh, yeah. That's what we do around here. We have a lot of fun doing it, nearing 100 total episodes of this podcast. So you'll join us today. Hopefully you'll learn some things about a very important social media platform. I mean, I think important to a lot of people, but I mention this because not only can you enjoy listening to the soothing voices of us today. But we have a whole backlog of podcast episodes. So it's not just what we create today live on various social media channels, obviously recording for the podcast listener, that's our main audience. But also if you're curious about a topic, here's an idea, go take a little listen to nearly 100 episodes that we've done prior to this.
Lauren:
I know Phil Pallen. Because you use my last name I do. It's crazy. I guess it just shows that when you're disciplined and stick to a schedule and you're consistent, it really snowballs and adds up.
Phil
It's funny, you bring that specific little topic up, because I was thinking about it this morning, in how easy it is for us to look at, let's say, a competitor or a brand hero and look at all of their best moments on Instagram, or all of their top performing videos on YouTube. And that is so not the whole picture of reality.
You know, we've had episodes that have done really well. I've had YouTube videos that have done really well and people see that I barely even pay attention to those I think about all the hiccups and bumps in the road. And really only the creators know that. Someone said to me the other day, Phil you’re rocking it on YouTube, and it was someone who is really good on YouTube. And I was like, why are you saying that? I'm not rocking? Yes, I've had a few videos, but I've had a few videos get a couple hundred views.
Isn't it funny though, that we were so quick to judge ourselves. You need to just stick with something. There's so much value in doing it, and continuing to do it, that you arrive at this moment of confidence of efficiency systems, we just hop in and we do this. And yes, the listener gets value from it, but so do we. We get value from this organized, sometimes forced interaction. This is our sanction time to brainstorm and be creative, and we get to share in that process, which is actually exactly what we're doing today.
Lauren
Yeah, I'm excited for today's topic.
Phil:
On my list of to dos for quite literally not only weeks, but actually months. That's embarrassing. On my list of to dos, and it's been there for months, and maybe people can relate to this by updating my LinkedIn profile. And you know, had this been a client task, a client responsibility, a client deliverable, I would do this, it would be done months ago, you know, but all of a sudden, because it's me, it goes to the bottom of the priority list. And we're gonna cut that behavior out today. I thought, here I am sitting looking at my LinkedIn profile, which to be honest, I haven't updated in a really long time.
Lauren
Like years, right?
Phil
It's been years and it's time. Would you say it's time to make some updates to this? And I thought rather than just doing this quietly, or pinging Lauren Moore 500 times individually, why couldn't we make a podcast episode out of quick, thoughtful updates and fixes that people can make to their own LinkedIn profiles and I'm gonna do it live on the call.
Lauren
Amazing. And you know, maybe we should consider rebranding Brand Therapy to be just Phil's to do list. Every episode we get through something, something that we've put off for a long time. Now, today's gonna be awesome. And we've got a really, really great point of reference that we're going to be going through today and maybe Phil, do you want to get some more information on that?
Phil:
Yes, because it's the two of us putting our heads together to make some of these updates. Those of you watching the video version of this, I just shared my screen a little preview of my LinkedIn profile. If you're listening, don't worry, we'll talk through all of this.
First we want to talk about LinkedIn, the purpose of it and the way that you want to go about positioning yourself on here. But even before that, I want to give a shout out to Vitor. Our friend Vitor is a Full Sail University grad from Brazil. He was an international student. He's a great friend of mine, and he's a smart little cookie. And he's recently launched a personal brand and a vertical of his business where he's helping people update their LinkedIn profiles. How's that for specificity and niche? I love that.
Lauren
I mean, it's needed, right? LinkedIn, to me is what Facebook was seven years ago. And I just love that. If you listen to your audience, if you pay attention, if you stay true to yourself, you really, really easily can build an audience there. Even you found you've experimented with posting videos yourself on LinkedIn. And it's crazy how many views you can get there versus Facebook, or even Instagram without even really trying.
Phil:
Without even trying that hard. That's the beauty of this. So we have to give the Vitor a shout out before we dive into it. I was one of his first like, client projects and he offered to do this complimentary for me, and I said, You know what, I'm going to take some of these recommendations and Share them with Lauren. And now share that with our podcast listeners. So a huge thanks to Vitor and I'll make sure we post his links on our podcast notes for this episode. They’re super reasonably priced. Totally, if you need some LinkedIn help, then he is the person to get in touch with and Vitor, thank you because we're using some of your recommendations for today.
Lauren
Fantastic stuff really, really observant and really, really detailed recommendations. So we'll go through those.
Let's kick things off by discussing probably the number one go to LinkedIn question that we get is profile photo. What should you choose for your profile photo? And Phil, I know that you've got your LinkedIn up on the screen now. So do you want to sort of talk through first, what was going through your mind when choosing that profile photo and then maybe some considerations for updating?
Phil
Yes, so I first as a disclaimer, don't think that my Instagram or my LinkedIn profile picture is perfect. I just tend to prefer to have them consistent across all platforms. I also try to choose profile images, not just for LinkedIn, but across the board that give an indication of your visual brand. So this is something I've taught in Instagram Mastery, our course, even Content Mastery, I've mentioned it. I like choosing a profile photo where in the background, we get a flavor of your brand, your brand colors. So that was why I chose this photo that I've been using. You'll see it on Instagram, you'll see it on LinkedIn. Is it perfect for LinkedIn? I don't know. We should probably talk about that. Lauren. It might not be perfect. I actually have never asked your opinion on which photo I should be using. Probably an argument could be made that a photo looking directly at the audience is better. I'm not really sure. Now that you know my take in terms of choosing a photo to ideally illustrate your visual brand, what do you think?
Lauren
So I think the photo is beautiful. I love just the visual style. It feels very dreamy and positive. And I agree it does align with your brand. You also chose this photo when you weren't really actively posting on LinkedIn anyway. So I think looking away from the camera is okay, because there's some distance, right when you're not actively connecting with the person on the other side of the screen.
However, I think that if someone is going to be posting regularly on LinkedIn, and really going to be trying to build a community, I do think that facing the camera is important just to add that extra connection or that personal touch to whatever you're doing, because your photos always going to be there whenever you post or comment or whatever, right.
Phil:
Oh, great. And you know what, it's funny, as I said, I was going to make live updates on this call, but I've actually changed my mind because I don't want like me getting in there and updating it to distract from the important conversation points that we're going to talk about. So here's something, if you're not connected on LinkedIn at the time that we are recording this and posting this episode, make sure that we are connected over on LinkedIn. And you'll be able to go over to my profile and see some updates. So this is the before. Consider this episode the before. And when we connect on LinkedIn, you'll see some of the updates and changes I've made from our productive conversation today. Okay, so here's my promise, I'll update your photo to a photo of me looking directly at the camera. And I'm going to try and find one that still illustrates my visual brand, so everyone's happy.
Lauren:
Yes, and for anyone listening who's thinking about updating their own profile photo, I think, focus less on where your eyes are and focus more on the quality of the image. Phil, you get photoshoots done all the time, especially before COVID happened. So you've got a lot of high quality wonderful images to choose from. Other people might not have as many so I think quality of the image is really critical.
As well, the cropping of the images is important. Phil, you drilled into my head years ago for a small photo, you need to be close to your face. This is not an opportunity for a full body picture. So make sure that you're choosing a photo that can be cropped right around your collarbone area. Would you say?
Phil:
Yes, I would your shoulders. Yes. Yeah, that's exactly right. And honestly, the closer the better because the majority of people see your profile photo displayed really small. It's not a Yeah, big version that we see when we're on your profile. It's actually the super small version that appears every time we see your text or photo or video update, right. So the closer you can crop to your face, the better I mean, don't get scary. We don't need to see your nostrils. Most are not super comfortable cropping and close to your face. I could actually crop it a little bit closer on that photo.
Lauren
I have strong opinions about this particular thing, backgrounds. I like when there is depth to a background personally. Yeah, it just adds that extra something especially for a fall small image, it's nice to see some shadows and some light that's going further than a couple inches behind the back of your head.
So if you can try to use a photo where you're not standing against a wall or standing against, you know, just like a plain color background, you know how some people will like, super impose themselves on a flat color, none of that embrace depth where you can because that really, really helps add a nice visual variety to a very small virtual real estate.
Phil
Yes, LinkedIn doesn't mean boring because so many projects or people have come to us yet said like, I need to stay corporate. That doesn't mean boring. Corporate doesn't mean boring.
People should go to our website and check out the client rebrand of Susan Salgado, who works with corporations. Her brand is anything but boring philpallen.com/examples We have Susan Salgado there and she's an example of someone who is corporate but she's not boring.
Your profile photos shouldn't be a headshot. If a headshot means a photo of you against a white background, boring, boring, boring, boring, boring, boring, it should give some life to it. And I like actually the specific kind of parameters you provided, which is like, give some depth, show some location, show us something that provides context for who you are. Okay, great. I love that. So fix number one is profile photo where we're going next cover photo.
Lauren
So I really like your cover photo personally, because it shows a little teaser of what it is that you do. There's also depth, I think it's cool that we can see the back of your neck with one of your infamous necklaces, that you do love to wear those chains. But I think also it's cool that it's giving a little promo for your course.
So it was some of Vitor's feedback, which I thought was really, really great is that your cover photo does need to showcase the value that you bring. So your course does that and that might be something that someone else might want to consider too, for example, if you help, I don't know with change management and organizations, then you might want to show a photo of a lively office, or a really cool desktop shot that indicates that someone's hard at work or deep in inspiration.
Now, some of Vitor's feedback was pretty cool as well as he thought that there was an opportunity, Phil, for you to actually create artwork that showed examples, almost like a gallery of your branding projects.
Phil
Yep. Love it.
Lauren:
Pretty cool, because it would add a bit more variety and would help create some intrigue. So I guess the takeaway here is that you don't necessarily have to use just one image for your cover photo, you could actually put multiple images together and create more of a kind of grid there. If you are having challenges finding one photo that encapsulates what you do.
Phil
Well, I also think it depends how you plan on using LinkedIn and you want to avoid trying to be everything to us. Everyone, even though you've done lots of things, you have to decide what's the focus? Who do I want to appeal to who do I want to speak to, it doesn't mean that you're only going to have conversations with those exact people. Sometimes the specificity of going all in and speaking to one specific audience will actually give confidence to people that are not in that audience. Rather than you saying, I work in digital marketing. Let's take Vitor for an example. Right? If he was to say I am a LinkedIn strategist, or I provide services that help you grow your business on LinkedIn, as opposed to saying, I work in digital marketing. It's such more of a compelling argument to get specific.
So for me, I kind of straddle this line between is LinkedIn for branding projects or his LinkedIn for speaking engagements. And I'm not saying you need to decide what that is now, I tend to think speaking engagements are most important and so some of the chains you agree with that right?
Lauren:
I do. Yeah, totally. I do.
Phil:
So I think as we work through some of these quick updates, almost what I should have said at the beginning, which is keep your goal, that specificity. Keep that goal in mind with every update that you make. I think the photo has to appeal to someone that would want to hire me for speaking, I should have probably done a clause or or a great photo of me on stage up there. So people know that I speak quite literally around the world. So I'll have a little look at what I've got. Sometimes hardest is speaker because sometimes the photos of me on stage are not that great or they're like iPhone photos. But let's see what I have. And I'll make a call on the stage that all looks very different. Two different they're not my brand colors.
So, profile photo and cover photo, those kind of go hand in hand. What are those saying individually? What are they saying together? Is there room to add multiple photos up there? Could you also include some text or a call to action? All of those are possibilities.
Lauren:
Now the text and call to action. One thing I will say is that LinkedIn is probably the trickiest in terms of sizing for the images that you use particularly on your cover photo. For example, if you look at Phil's profile right now on desktop as he has it up on the social media broadcast we're doing and then if you also look at Phil's profile on your phone, it's cut off. So if you're going to be using text, just prepare yourself that might take some tinkering to figure out what works and what isn't cut off. So if you want to make life easier for yourself don't do use text stop at all.
Phil:
I completely agree because people are going to be consuming this yes, maybe on their computer but also probably definitely on their phones. And you know you as simple as better that's like, our mantra like keep it safe. Okay, where are we going next?
Lauren
We've talked about photos okay. The headline, Phil right now you've got a brand strategist and keynote speaker on personal branding. You've gotten a speaking engagement increase through LinkedIn for this you want to talk about what happened when you added keynote speaker to your headline.
Phil
Yes, I do want to talk about that one simple addition of a relevant keyword, you know, meant someone a stranger typing that term into LinkedIn, and finding me for a speaking engagement in Europe is not cool. One change, one little change, and someone messaged me, it was a few months after I made the change and said, I'm looking for a speaker on personal branding, and I found you. So the power of keywords cannot be emphasized enough. I'm not saying that your life is going to change the day after you make the change. It might make no difference at all, but it's worth trying.
I think also not just choosing the word that you think describes you, but actually using a keyword tool. Keywords everywhere are one of our favorites. If you want to keep it really simple, go to Google and type in a keyword and just see the other suggested phrases that Google shows you. So I might do personal branding, let's say, you know, like a suggested phrase might be personal branding for musicians. Maybe that's not going to go in my headline, but maybe that could go in my services or in my about if that's an area, it's not an area I specialize in. But if it was, right, again, be specific, but also don't just choose keywords from your brain, choose them based on search volume, and what people are looking for.
Lauren:
Definitely and choose based on specificity. If you just had a keynote speaker and didn't have any personal branding, that could be a barrier to someone messaging you because they'd have no idea what type of keynote speaker you were. So just make sure that you add that little extra something to actually put yourself in a pigeonhole because it could help ultimately.
Phil
Absolutely. good tip. Okay, where do we go next?
Lauren
Okay, so this is an interesting suggestion by Vitor. I'm not totally sure how I feel about it, but I'm just gonna throw it out there as food for thought for our listeners. For your name and last name if you have any additional accreditations, like an MBA or any certifications, etc, you can add that after your last name. If you want to just add a little extra something, something. I know Phil, you've got your master's and is it science?
Phil:
Yeah, it's science. I'm not adding that. No.
Lauren:
So I think it has to, it really depends on the industry that you work in. If you are in a position that actually requires certifications to do what you do, then with them with you at it. Yes, put it with your name. But if you're not, maybe keep it clean. I think for you.
Phil:
Should we talk about LinkedIn summaries?
Lauren
Yes.
Phil:
One of my best performing YouTube videos is called How to Write your LinkedIn summary with examples. That was actually a blog post and a YouTube video. Lauren wrote the blog post, I made the YouTube video, but it's one of my best performing videos. So we should link to that actually in the podcast notes. Or if you go to YouTube type Phil Pallen LinkedIn, it should be the first video that comes up. But if you are in the process, I actually don't want to spend a lot of time on it because there's still some other things to go through. Maybe Lauren likes yeah, quick, a few quick points on it. But if people are in the stage of writing their about section or writing their LinkedIn summary, definitely watch that video for examples and for tips.
Lauren
Definitely watch that and just the really three quick takeaways. First, write in the first person, we all know that you created your LinkedIn profile, please just like there's no mystery there, use I. That's my number. That's my greatest pet peeve.
Honestly, the second is if you've had press this is a really, really good opportunity to mention press.
And lastly, make it easy and fun to read. So I tried to write so that a 10 year old could read it and somewhat understand, because we all have short attention spans. And the second we see long, long, long paragraphs and long run on sentences, we zone out to make it easy for someone to see your value.
Phil:
I love those tips. Great. We have a few more minutes. So let's see a few more updates that we can make or I will be making based on some suggestions from you from Vitor. What have we got?
Lauren
So your featured section, this is where you can show yourself doing your thing out in the wild? I would argue that it is the most concrete example of work anywhere on the LinkedIn profile. Phil, for you, you've got your impressive press coverage. And while it's awesome, and I think it definitely adds some credibility, I think there's some potential to do more. Wouldn't you agree?
Phil
Yeah, this is so dated. This is not the right thing to put here. This is what I cared about four years ago, but actually to our point earlier, the fact that we're talking about speaking, being my focus, I need to put links here where people can actually watch me giving talks. So hello.
Lauren
Yeah. Watching giving talks and also showing some portfolio examples, right?
Phil:
Yes. Yes show portfolio examples branding. Like, it's cool. LinkedIn used to be so boring, right? And now you've got all these visual opportunities to incorporate, not just telling people who you are, but showing people is really super cool. Okay, so as we move down the profile in our final few minutes here, what else do we want to point out? I know that I want to say something about recommendations.
Lauren:
Okay. You talk about recommendations first.
Phil
So while I look at this profile, it's painfully outdated. Thanks to your help to be torn, we're bringing it up to speed. There is one thing that I've done well, the thing that I've done well is getting gathering recommendations. Anytime, and I'm obnoxious about this. Anytime someone says something nice to me, about me, Phil, I loved your approach on this, Phil, I loved your talk at the wine media conference, not only do I go, thank you for those kind words, but I will actually say in that moment, would you be willing to say exactly that on LinkedIn for me? And I immediately will add them to LinkedIn. And I'll send a request for recommendation.
And to be clear, there's a difference between skills and endorsements, and recommendations. Recommendations are the written recommendations that you can get from people and I am looking at my profile. Now at the time of recording this I have 75. And that's just from doing this. Anytime someone says something nice, the place that you want to gather that testimonial is LinkedIn, because this is where people can see that you're not just making up a testimonial or editing it on your own website, but there's actually a face and a name and a title attached to that. And I think that's really powerful.
Lauren:
Totally, like 75 that's bananas.
Phil:
Right? So like Hello, you should hire me and the other thing too, is that you don't want to let Too much time passes in between recommendations. I'll let a few months pass no big deal. But you don't want all of your recommendations to be from 2011. But you want to at least have a few each year. So I make a point of every few months making sure depending on what I have going on, that I recommend, or I request recommendations. And I think there's power in telling someone like what you just said, say that here, so they don't have to sit here and stew over okay, what are the nice things I need to say about this person? Like no one has time for that?
Lauren
Yeah, busy day. Yeah. And also you don't want someone to be following a formula either. Right? A lot of times will be, so and so was a conscientious and fantastic leader. I worked with them above the law. It's always the same formula. I would rather someone say I saw this talk. It was amazing. It made me realize this. Thank you so much. Can't wait to see your next one.
Phil
Exactly. I think quantity I was helped so 75 It's a lot. Yeah, I'm actually proud of myself for this being something that I've actually kept up, I have a bad habit of starting things and not finishing them. But this is something that I do. I incorporated into my email automations is just something that is something I do, and I keep them all in one place. And I can refer people back here. Oh, and you know what, one more thing that we should talk about is experience. I love your perspective on this.
Lauren:
Yes. So I see a lot of people filling in the experience section, kind of like a resume with like, boring bullet points, talking about the ins and outs of their role at a particular organization. And I say, throw those bullet points in the garbage. Instead, tell a story about what you've learned or how you've grown, or how you've changed a community or a group of people at that particular job.
So let's say you're a consultant, and you've been a consultant for four years and left your full time job to pursue that. You could say something about how you navigated being your own boss and how you stood by your values of blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, to help your clients achieve X, Y, and Z. Tell a story. Don't tell me the boring granular details.
Phil
Yeah, it's so much more memorable. I absolutely love that, that's probably something I need to do a better job of doing on my own profile. We're going to work on that. I'm going to update my profile with some of these exciting updates. I also want to mention to people that in addition to this podcast episode, we're also going to have a visual reference, which is my YouTube video this week.
So I'll actually be sharing my screen as I go through some of these updates that we've talked about today that I've made on my profile. So definitely go check that out. It's on my YouTube channel youtube.com/PhilPallen If you learned something brand new on this episode, let us know #brandtherapy. I'm @philpallen.
Lauren:
I'm @thelaurenmoore
Phil
We would love to hear from you. We'd love to continue the conversation. If you enjoyed this episode, you learned something brand new, head over to the iTunes to leave a review, five star, five star, that helps other people discover us, you know this podcast that we work very hard to make.
Well, that's Brand Therapy for this week all on LinkedIn. You know, we'll be back next week for a brand new episode. We'll see you then.
Lauren:
Bye bye bye.
