How To Tell Your Whole Story, With Keywords

LinkedIn is the social media platform for business connections. Of course, a virtual connection can not replace any kind of in-person, live engagement, but you can do a lot to round out your full profile on LinkedIn so that people can understand the whole you. The whole you is important; it explains your distinctive abilities, and your particular experience that has shaped who you are. Your full life experience is how you acquired the unique combination of skills that you bring to the table.

However, that “full life experience” has to be crafted carefully to tell a story useful to your “today goals” or there’s no point using LinkedIn for business.

Start With How You Want To Be Found

In response to which keyword or keyword phrase, do you want your name to come up? That is the primary keyword that you will want to liberally sprinkle throughout your entire profile. Be sure to add it to the 5 main sections of your profile:

• Your Headline
• Current Work Experience
• Past Work Experience
• Summary Section
• Skills Section

Re-frame Rank To Keyword

Rather than use the word “Project Coordinator” or “Assistant To The President” use a related keyword phrase to describe the function you provided first and the rank or position that you held, later in the line. There are two ways that search works with LinkedIn:

• LinkedIn’s own internal search
• Regular search engines

You will want to rank for the keyword, not the title in both

Make Sure LinkedIn Thinks You’re Complete

You don’t want to appear like you’re not a whole person, or you don’t take the time to fill out paperwork properly. (Two quick flags to potential employers, partners, investors, etc.)

Like all social networks, LinkedIn has changed. It used to be that your profile was complete only after you had 3 recommendations. Now, you need 50 connections, 3 jobs and a minimum of 5 skills. In fact, here is the current list of what comprises a 100% complete profile:

• Industry and postal code
• A current position with description
• Two more positions
• Education
• At least 5 skills
• Profile photo
• At least 50 connections
• A summary

There is a framework you have to fit your story into on LinkedIn and that might be an intimidating prospect for anyone trying to change careers or looks qualified for something tangential to what they’re doing if not directly related. This is why the telling of your story is so valuable; few can do it right. Always present your experience in terms of what it taught you. In life, we could not be here if we had not already been there. (You can rarely climb to the top of a tree if you haven’t started at the bottom of it.) So, too, with business, you could not be worth what you are today had you not had the experience to get you to today. So tell the whole story, don’t leave any gaps, just present your job history in a way that makes you look uniquely valuable.