3 Steps to Crowdsourcing Your LinkedIn Profile

Did you know? Only 50% of LinkedIn users have properly completed their profiles? Even though two people per second are joining LinkedIn and it now has over 300 million members, the number of people who are using it to its fullest potential is low. [Click on this link to check out 13 more intelligent reasons why you should spend more time on your LinkedIn profile.]

After You Complete Your Profile, You STILL Need to Optimize It

Once you take the time to fill out your LinkedIn profile completely, next you must validate it's conveying the right message. It's called "personal branding," and it has a major impact on your ability to get people to connect with you on LinkedIn. Why is it so important? Studies show people only spend between 6-13 seconds reviewing a LinkedIn profile before they decide if they will accept an invitation to connect. They don't read your profile, they skim it. Thus, you must optimize what you put on the profile to ensure a reader is taking away the right first impression.

3 Steps to Crowdsourcing Your LinkedIn Profile

The easiest way to determine what your profile is saying about you is to use crowdsourcing. You do this by getting a bunch of people to do the following three steps:

Step 1: Review your profile for 10 seconds. Ask them to open your profile and review it for only 10 seconds. They should keep a stopwatch handy. Then, they need to close the screen.

Step 2. Immediately write down everything they remember. Next, have them jot down everything they can remember they saw on your profile. It should be a brain dump of whatever they can recall.

Step 3: List the most impressive thing they can recall about the profile. Lastly, have them evaluate all they saw and choose the one thing that, in their opinion, is the most impressive about your experience.

If you have enough people do this (in my experience you need at least 5-10 people to give you some consistent feedback), you will get a sense of what is standing out on your profile. If its what you wanted people to be impressed by, then you know your profile is in good shape. BUT, if it isn't, then you need to go back and revamp what you've listed about yourself.

FYI - You Can Crowdsource Online With Strangers

If you don't feel comfortable asking your colleagues and friends to crowdsource your profile, you can always attend a Mingle event. It's a free online networking session every Tuesday night at 7pm EST. [Sign-up here.] Attendees review each other's profiles and share what they see. Within an hour, you can easily get profile first impressions from more than a few participants. Not only will you be able to use the results to improve your effectiveness on LinkedIn, you'll make some new career friends online in the process - helping you to expand your network. [Here's a video where I explain how a Mingle Peer Profile Review works and why it's so important to do. Sign-up for the next free Mingle event by clicking here >>]

#1 Reason to Crowdsource = Prepare for the Unexpected

If you want to get the most out of your LinkedIn profile, you need to spend some time contemplating the best way to position yourself. You are a business-of-one and your LinkedIn profile is the website for that business. The more effort you put into LinkedIn (i.e. complete your profile, post updates regularly, etc.), the more you'll be rewarded in the form of profile reviews and connection requests. Even if you aren't looking for a job right now, or in need of some career guidance, it's vital that you keep your LinkedIn profile current and active. Why? Because EVERY job is temporary and your situation could change in a heartbeat. Do you really want to be the person with the weak profile and no connections if that happens?

Don't wait. Get going on your profile today and use crowdsourcing to help you.

If you want to read more of what I've written, check out my articles on Inc.com.

Photo: Shutterstock

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Hey, have we met before?! If this is your first time reading my posts on LinkedIn, thanks for stopping by! If you liked what you read, will you follow me here? I write weekly on all topics related to careers. Also, I'd be truly grateful if you'd share my work with your LinkedIn network - let's help more people take control of their careers!

Some other posts I've written:

• 10 Things Recruiter Won’t Tell You (But I Will)
• 4 Words Control Your Career Decisions
• Worst LinkedIn Summary Ever
• 10 Reasons Happy People Get More Job Opportunities
• 3 Techniques To Fight Unemployment Stigma

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