While there are a lot of business networking sites vying for our attention and our participation these days, what’s important is that we see and use each of these sites for that which they were meant and allocate the time we spend on them accordingly. So, while Facebook and Twitter are great places to stay in touch with friends and family and, to some extent, market a business or services, LinkedIn was created as a professional networking resource where people can connect and even establish business relationships.
Keeping your social and professional networking separate, that is saving status updates about your child’s flu bug for Facebook and not sharing this information with potential employers or clients, is important if you want to successfully market yourself or your business.
Perhaps the most difficult thing, when comparing the sort of professional and personal profile examples and what is better suited for the likes of either Linked In or Facebook, is still appearing ‘personal’ and ‘real’ while effectively marketing your professional skills and business experience on LinkedIn.
Like I mentioned before, many of the personal profile examples that you will find on social networking sites like Facebook contain photos, updates about anything and everything friends and family did or didn’t want to know and even open dialogue between the profile owner and their Facebook friends. Regardless of what’s been posted, however, one could argue that this type of profile is both personal and representative of a ‘real’ person.
If you were to transfer the same content to Linked In, however, chances are this isn’t how you or your future employers or business associates would want to perceive of you and your professional talents; it’s not relevant and crosses too far into one’s personal life. So, how do you blend the right amount of ‘personal’ into the type of professional profile examples that belong on LinkedIn? How can you at once tell people who you are (professionally-speaking) without coming across as robotic or void of emotion or a personality?
The goal is to find a balance. As a start, the following are just a few of the many things you should keep in mind when creating your LinkedIn profile so that a better balance between professional and personal can be found:
Well-Balanced, Professional Profile Examples Include the Following:
- A full name and general location
- Engaging conversation with connections, including the occasional commentary on world events or other popular topics
- Information or comments about upcoming business-related trips
- Once or twice a month, include something that’s unrelated to your business or your professional life (i.e. make reference to a hobby, your family or favorite sports team without getting too personal)
Successful Linked In Profiles Don’t Include the Following:
- Dozens of family
- Political debates
- Heated discussions with connections over unrelated topics
- Details about purely personal vacations
- Daily status updates about family
- Dozens of links to websites or content that are totally unrelated to your profession, business or skills