Each touchpoint you offer with you on LinkedIn is crucial, so plan it, draft it, tweak it, and repeat it.  Marketing yourself, with emphasis below on how to do it well, sticks with the reader to create your brand recognition. Here goes, it’s a long post today:

Fright?

I just received 2 advertisements to my email: one about diabetic foot amputation that the ad claims occurs from drinking certain beverages (fright) and the other about diet-driven toenail fungus cures. Mutually exclusive? Not going there.

But these are ads, designed to shock and gain momentary attention from diabetics or those embarrassed by their toenails. Fright, not higher thought than “yikes!”

Your LinkedIn profile must rise above the “what” of shock/fright. It must reinforce the “why” of you, Yes, you talking  directly to the first-time reader of your profile why you do what you do, with skills endorsers and recommenders reiterating your why in terms of how well they have witnessed you demonstrate it.

Fight?

I know that “why” works much better than “what.” You may even torment yourself in extracting your expression of why.

But marketing is a fight for attention and recognition in a noisy world, done well, it’s presented subtly, professionally, repeatedly to keep them interested, as in you marketing to the reader’s laser-focus to your comments about why you do what you do, not once but as often as you have something valuable to offer.

Marshall power verbs, utilize whole sentences (including the pronouns I, me, my, mine), relate exemplary stories, verbalize in your own style–so when they call or email you they receive a reply with you expressing yourself in the words within your own personality, transcending the constraints of the chosen medium of conversation.

Ah, winning as you fight the game with the comfort of the right wording, intriguing phrasing, thoughtful paragraphs.

Flight?

Don’t overwhelm them with me-me-me. That’s going to cause flight.

Hacks and copy-pasting your resume is tantamount to the Roadrunner’s puff of dust as the reader exits as fast as they can say meep-meep.

If they departed, “they’re just not that into you” as the slip away. And they are never coming back. Never allow their flight instinct to overtake your expounding on your core values.

Just figure out how to keep them listening, reading, referring you.

Write!

You get nanoseconds to make a positive impact. Stand out from the competition in ways you may not have considered in your LinkedIn profile:

  • Showcase your best recent work in the Featured section as a teaser to attract the reader’s attention.
  • Integrate quotes from clients that came unsolicited to thank or applaud you within your About section.
  • Post meaningful, thoughtful comments on top of material you came across in Posts and/or an installment to your Newsletter to share with interested others.
  • Become valued as a reliable source, offered and earned consistently, with every touch to your connections and followers.
  • Be the referee in the conversation you started, entered or segued to a tangent. Write, rewrite, tweak often, publish. Edit and adapt.

And if writing doesn’t come easy to you, get a coach. Not a ghost writer.

You may just need inspiration, another lap around the field to think it all through, to assess your why and refine it, and a pinch of accountability, all the exercises a coach can help you build into your self-expression.

Only you can market you “why.”