Caveat emptor: buyer beware of the quality of goods and services before purchased.
To you, the (re)writer of your renovated LinkedIn profile, beware and be aware how you come across to the reader.
One miss and the point you tried to make is no longer memorable and poof, the reader is gone….to your competitor. Like a stain on your shirt as you are trying to make an impression, that’s all they can concentrate on, and thus you are toast.
Yes, I know that writing is hard for some, and branding yourself is even harder. You might have burned-in admonishments to leave at the door, like being taught all your childhood not to talk about yourself (parent and/or teacher finger wagging in your mind). Practice makes it easier. Bit you may need a little help from your friends.
A parable: last Friday night as I watched a TV ad for a service company , the voice intoned:
Our reputation is enormous.
At that point I honestly stopped listening to the voice and was lost in thoughts about how silly that sounded. And I wondered: as a national brand, they should know better than to say that.
Really? You can now measure the size of a reputation? Who does that? What standard is being used? How is that expressed? Does size of reputation matter? On and on the mind wanders…
They could have said better:
Our reputation is untarnished.
or
Our reputation is sterling.
or
Our reputation is impeccable.
And I would have absorbed one of those. After all, reputations are about quality not quantity.
I thought their combination of words was really odd. And if that is what I am buying them for, a supersized, gargantuan, ginormous reputation, then I can more that a bit skeptical.
A “marketing miss” as a marketing colleague would call this.
So it is with your LinkedIn profile:
- Beware what you say,
- Take care how you come across,
- Aim at the audience’s concerns,
- Ask a colleague or two or three to honestly review what you wrote
- not for typos,
- but for quality
- and especially for believableness (that is a word!)
- Heed their suggestions in your revision,
- Let the written piece “cool” a few days,
- Look at it one more time,
- Then if no changes, upload it to LinkedIn.
Caveat LinkedIn profile writer.
Be sure you are believable and concise.
And that your brand reputation quality follows along with what you have clearly stated about yourself.
