By Susan Hoffman
Online Career Tips Contributor
On LinkedIn, you can easily demonstrate your professional expertise and attract recruiters or business clients to your network. However, LinkedIn offers four lesser-known features that you can use to highlight your business value.
These features include creating a customized LinkedIn URL, adding media, tagging your connections, and rearranging your endorsements.
Note: The instructions provided below apply only when viewing LinkedIn via a web browser on a laptop or desktop.
Create a Custom LinkedIn Public Profile URL
Your individual LinkedIn URL typically starts with LinkedIn’s web address, followed by your name and a series of random letters and numbers. You can tweak this web address to make it easier for you and others to remember. Go to Profile > Edit Profile, and hover your cursor over your current LinkedIn address. You’ll see a gear wheel appear. Click this gear to see your Public Profile page.
In the “Your public profile URL” section, you’ll see a pencil icon next to your LinkedIn URL. Click the icon, highlight the part of your LinkedIn address you want to change, edit the URL, and then click the Save button.
It’s helpful to pick a memorable phrase associated with your profession or interests. For example, if your name is Jared Smith and you work as a graphic designer, your customized URL could end in “jaredsmithdesigner,” “jsmithdesigns,” or “jaredsdesigns.”
Enrich Your Profile by Adding Media
If you seek a new job or you want to attract new business, take advantage of LinkedIn’s Add Media feature. This feature lets you upload photographs, hyperlinks, videos, presentations, or documents to prove your expertise and creativity to profile readers. Please make sure that these items contain no proprietary information before you upload media.
LinkedIn permits you to upload files up to 15 megabytes in size. Acceptable file formats include .pdf, .ppt, .pptx, .doc, .docx, .png, .gif, .jpg, and .jpeg.
Tag Your Connections
When you have a large and ever-growing network, it can be hard to remember the precise details about how you met someone. Go to your first-level connection’s profile on LinkedIn, look for “Relationship” and click on “Tag”. Choose from the list that appears underneath “Tag” or click on “Add New Tag” to create a new category.
Another option is to click on “How you met,” situated to the left of “Tag.” By clicking on “How you met,” you’ll see a box where you can type in information about how, when, and where you met that person and who introduced you. Adding this information comes in handy for referral purposes as you’re composing a new e-mail to your first-level connection.
Rearrange Your LinkedIn Endorsements to Your Best Advantage
In 2012, LinkedIn introduced “Skills and Endorsements” to help you show off your skills and to make it easier for you to recognize other people for their expertise. These skills appear as a vertical list of endorsements in your profile.
To help others understand your value more easily, rearrange the order of your endorsements so that your most noteworthy business skills appear at the top of the list. Go to Profile > Edit Profile and scroll to the “Skills and Endorsements” section. Hover your cursor in the area where your endorsements appear, and you’ll see pencil icons next to the endorsements.
Click one of the icons to be taken to a “Skills and Endorsements Settings” section, where you can view the entire list of your endorsements. To move an endorsement higher or lower on the list, move your cursor over it and use your mouse to drag and drop the endorsement to a new location. Afterward, click the “Save” button to save your changes.
A content-rich, polished, and informative profile is helpful when you’re job-hunting or you want to reassure potential clients about your expertise. Along with proper networking techniques, a robust LinkedIn profile is a useful tool to help you stand out from your competition and demonstrate your importance as a business asset or partner.
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