Dan Galante

A LinkedIn profile is a great opportunity to showcase who you are and what you can do for others. To effectively showcase yourself with your LinkedIn profile, you need to be able to tell a story that is credible and engaging. How do you tell a story on LinkedIn with your profile? There are 8 steps you need to take to optimize your profile for storytelling.

1. Creating a Great Headline

A headline is equivalent to the title of a book, essay, or story. The headline should be engaging. Like a story, the reader decides if they want to read more or move on. Using the automatic headline that lists your job title is a mistake. It is boring and makes you just like everyone else. It demonstrates that you lack creativity.

Your headline should be a short introduction showing how you help others in your current role. This is key if you are happily employed or if you are looking to advance in your current field. If you are looking to change careers, the title should demonstrate how you can take the skills and insights that you have developed and apply them to the career that you aspire to obtain. In other words, the headline should be able to answer the question “What are you looking to do or what do you want in your next role?” 

2 Uploading a Photo

LinkedIn profiles include large amounts of text. Similar to a story, text alone is not visually appealing. This is where a photo can help. When you upload a photo to your LinkedIn profile, your profile comes to life; similar to cover art on the front cover of an autobiography. Remember your profile is your story and brief career autobiography.

When you chose a picture, make sure that it is clear and makes you look professional.

3. Recording an introduction

LinkedIn also lets you record a 30-second introduction to your audience.

4. Crafting and Creating a Summary/Presentation

Your summary should reflect and expand on the headline. This is the place where you provide a brief overview that supports the headline, thesis, and title of your story. Your summary is a place to introduce yourself to your audience. It is important to keep your audience in mind. Put yourself in the place of the reader. Would you want to read your profile if the roles were reversed?

Once you introduce yourself, tell your story. Explain your background, where you are today, and where you want to be in the future. Make sure to include how your current skill set and experience have helped others and how these skills can be applied to a new role. When you list your work experience, make sure to back up your headline and summary. Think of this as your body paragraphs.

You can also share links to a digital portfolio, website, or whatever boosts your profile appearance.

5. Describing your work experience

As I mentioned above, the work experience section of your profile is the body paragraphs of your essay and story. It should be listed in chronological order. Each position that you describe should have specific examples of how you helped others in the role. LinkedIn also allows users to upload presentations and videos of their work. This can serve as a digital portfolio of your work that people can view. The next thing that I would do is obtain recommendations. You can also share your presentations from Slideshare on LinkedIn as well.

6. Obtaining Recommendations and Endorsements

A LinkedIn recommendation serves as proof that you have done excellent work in your position. These recommendations should be from coworkers, supervisors, and customers that you have served. They should serve as the conclusion to your story and essay where your claims are verified and validated. Recommendations should not be given away freely; doing that will undermine your credibility.

Endorsements are a quick way for someone to say that you are good at a particular skill without needing to write a recommendation. LinkedIn allows users to list up to 50 skills that connections can endorse.

7. Open to Work/Open to Hire

LinkedIn allows users to share if they are open to working or looking to hire. This is a nice addition to their job seeker and job posting experience. I am currently looking for work. 

As you can see, LinkedIn allows you to list 5 job titles along with your desired work type location, etc. While I chose to make my job search public, LinkedIn allows users to make their open-to-work status visible to only recruiters to protect the anonymity of job seekers. 

Recruiters and hiring managers can also share that they are hiring for roles by using the Open to Hire frame. 

8. Creator Mode

LinkedIn allows you to display 5 topics on your LinkedIn profile to show potential followers when you turn on creator mode. Creator mode also allows you to reach your audience in new ways with tools such as LinkedIn Live, Audio Event, Newsletters, and follow on LinkedIn.

Putting it all Together

Using these 8 steps will allow you to create a LinkedIn profile that can help you tell a credible and engaging story to potential customers and employers.

How have you used your LinkedIn profile to tell your story?

Share your thoughts.

Additional places to find my content and blog

WordPress: https://dangalante.me/

Tumblr: http://www.askdangalante.com/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/today/author/DanGalante

Medium https://medium.com/@DanGalante

YouTube https://www.youtube.com/trendsettingsm

Anchor https://anchor.fm/dangalante

About Me

I’m a Strategic Marketer with Field Sales, Sales Enablement, Content Creation, and, Classroom Teacher/Trainer skill-sets using Marketing to drive Sales/Growth.

As a Marketer, I’ve worked with Start-Ups, a Political Campaign, and a Digital Marketing Conference.

I’m certified in Inbound Marketing with classes in Marketing, Product Management, Product Marketing, SEO, SEM.

Before teaching, I was an Outside Sales and Marketing Rep. selling and marketing dental products to Dentists using consultative selling, trade show marketing, field marketing, and market research.

I publish Sales, Marketing & Social Media Today a blog covering industry events and trends.

I’m seeking a full-time role in:

Inbound Marketing, Digital Marketing, Content Marketing, Product Marketing, Demand Generation, Social Media Marketing, Sales Enablement Enablement, Sales Strategy, Marketing Strategy, Employer Branding, Recruitment Marketing.

Open on title, industry, company, location, and level. Reach out on LinkedIn or at dan@dangalante.com to start a conversation.

Brands use Marketing to increase sales, and revenue, and to beat the competition. While this is a great strategy, a brand is only as good as its talent. Yes, brands compete to get and keep customers; but they are also competing to get and keep great talent. For brands to grow, they need great talent in every function of the business.

According to LinkedIn, “the number of global members who changed their jobs on LinkedIn was up 54% year over year. For context, those numbers typically hover between 0 and 5%. “

For brands to be able to attract top talent, they need to be a desired place to work. To be a desired place to work, they need to understand what motivates their employees. While this will vary by industry and company size there are similar things that many employees seek. These include:

1. Feeling valued for their contributions

2. Freedom to do interesting work and solve intriguing problems

3. Fair and competitive compensation including incentive and performance pay, perks, and other employer benefits

4. A fun place to work with activities to bond with co-workers

5. Training and advancement opportunities

6. Work-Life Balance

7. Flexible-working conditions ie work from home, remote work, hybrid work, or onsite for those who want to be in the office

If these things listed above are in place, brands are on the right track to building a great talented brand provided their product offerings are solid.

Getting employees excited about coming to work each day will increase the talent pool by generating word of mouth. When people have something good they tell their friends.

Beyond the offline word of mouth, Brands need to own their identity online by in-sourcing their online and offline assets. This starts with their websites, digital properties, and the collateral used to sell their offerings. With talent branding and employer branding, brands are selling prospective employees the idea of applying and working for their company. This is similar to marketing their commercial offerings to potential customers.

Brands will need to conduct market research to understand who their competitors are and where they stack up in the talent market. Compensation, company culture, intelligence from applicants.

Information from this research can be used to develop a positioning strategy that can be applied to the talent brand and employer brand.

Every brand should have a career page on its website because this will reduce recruiting costs. This page should include the following:

1. Pictures of employees from each function with a short bio and why they chose to work at the brand
2. Employer Benefits and Perks offered
3. Authentic Stories on Company Culture
4. An application that is easy to fill out. i.e greenhouse.io or a form with a file for a cover letter and resume Greenhouse can be linked with LinkedIn
5. Social Sharing buttons for job postings

Company LinkedIn pages

In addition to sales, product, and content marketing, brands should use their LinkedIn page for talent and employer branding. Some companies’ talent and employer branding strategy are to post jobs on LinkedIn hoping candidates will apply. This is a missed opportunity to sell active and passive candidates on why they should work for your company. Today, candidates have many places they can work.

Things to include in a LinkedIn page

1. Pictures of employees from each function with a short bio and why they chose to work at the brand
2. Employer Benefits and Perks offered
3. Stories on company culture
4. An application that is easy to fill out. i.e greenhouse.io Indeed, Glassdoor, or a form with a file for a cover letter and resume Greenhouse can be linked with LinkedIn.
5. Social Sharing buttons for job postings

Creating Engaging Job descriptions

The function head, Marketing, and HR need to collaborate to write job descriptions that convince applicants to apply, similar to copy-writing for commercial offerings.

Creating a Great Candidate Experience

Providing candidates with a great recruiting experience is key. Everything should be transparent to candidates. At the end of the recruiting process, it is important to solicit candidate feedback to refine and hone your recruiting process.

New Hire Onboarding and Reducing Turnover

Make sure new hires feel welcome and are trained properly coordinating with the managers and functional heads of each department because roles had different needs and requirements for success.

Empowering and providing incentives to employees

Encourage employees to share company content and jobs on LinkedIn. Also, encourage employee referrals with incentives for referrals that are hired.

If you are not happy with the amounts of applications post the jobs on LinkedIn and Indeed to widen the applicant pools. Niche site may work as well.

This is how to use Marketing to build a great Talent Brand.

Who is hiring?

I surveyed my audience of Recruiters and Hiring Managers to which roles are they hiring.

Based on the answers Sales is the highest at 50 %.

Specific data on top jobs in demand can be found here.

How have you used marketing to build your talent and employer brand?

Share your thoughts.

Additional places to find my content and blog

WordPress: https://dangalante.me/

Tumblr: http://www.askdangalante.com/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/today/author/DanGalante

Medium https://medium.com/@DanGalante

YouTube https://www.youtube.com/trendsettingsm

Anchor https://anchor.fm/dangalante

About Me

I’m a Strategic Marketer with Field Sales, Sales Enablement, Content Creation, and, Classroom Teacher/Trainer skill-sets using Marketing to drive Sales/Growth.

As a Marketer, I’ve worked with Start-Ups, a Political Campaign, and a Digital Marketing Conference.

I’m certified in Inbound Marketing with classes in Marketing, Product Management, Product Marketing, SEO, SEM.

Before teaching, I was an Outside Sales and Marketing Rep. selling and marketing dental products to Dentists using consultative selling, trade show marketing, field marketing, and market research.

I publish Sales, Marketing & Social Media Today a blog covering industry events and trends.

I’m seeking a full-time role in:

Inbound Marketing, Digital Marketing, Content Marketing, Product Marketing, Demand Generation, Social Media Marketing, Sales Enablement Enablement, Sales Strategy, Marketing Strategy, Employer Branding, Recruitment Marketing.

Open on title, industry, company, location, and level. Reach out on LinkedIn or at dan@dangalante.com to start a conversation.

Brands use Marketing to increase sales, and revenue, and to beat the competition. While this is a great strategy, a brand is only as good as its talent. Yes, brands compete to get and keep customers; but they are also competing to get and keep great talent. For brands to grow, they need great talent in every function of the business.

According to LinkedIn, “the number of global members who changed their jobs on LinkedIn was up 54% year over year. For context, those numbers typically hover between 0 and 5%. “

For brands to be able to attract top talent, they need to be a desired place to work. To be a desired place to work, they need to understand what motivates their employees. While this will vary by industry and company size there are similar things that many employees seek. These include:

1. Feeling valued for their contributions

2. Freedom to do interesting work and solve intriguing problems

3. Fair and competitive compensation including incentive and performance pay, perks, and other employer benefits

4. A fun place to work with activities to bond with co-workers

5. Training and advancement opportunities

6. Work-Life Balance

7. Flexible-working conditions ie work from home, remote work, hybrid work, or onsite for those who want to be in the office.

If these things listed above are in place, brands are on the right track to building a great talented brand provided their product offerings are solid.

Getting employees excited about coming to work each day will increase the talent pool by generating word of mouth. When people have something good they tell their friends.

Beyond the offline word of mouth, Brands need to own their identity online by in-sourcing their online and offline assets. This starts with their websites, digital properties, and the collateral used to sell their offerings. With talent branding and employer branding, brands are selling prospective employees the idea of applying and working for their company. This is similar to marketing their commercial offerings to potential customers.

Brands will need to conduct market research to understand who their competitors are and where they stack up in the talent market. Compensation, company culture, intelligence from applicants.

Information from this research can be used to develop a positioning strategy that can be applied to the talent brand and employer brand.

Every brand should have a career page on its website because this will reduce recruiting costs. This page should include the following:

1. Pictures of employees from each function with a short bio and why they chose to work at the brand
2. Employer Benefits and Perks offered
3. Authentic Stories on Company Culture
4. An application that is easy to fill out. i.e greenhouse.io or a form with a file for a cover letter and resume Greenhouse can be linked with LinkedIn.
5. Social Sharing buttons for job postings

Company LinkedIn pages

In addition to sales, product, and content marketing, brands should use their LinkedIn page for talent and employer branding. Some companies’ talent and employer branding strategy are to post jobs on LinkedIn hoping candidates will apply. This is a missed opportunity to sell active and passive candidates on why they should work for your company. Today, candidates have many places they can work.

Things to include in a LinkedIn page

1. Pictures of employees from each function with a short bio and why they chose to work at the brand
2. Employer Benefits and Perks offered
3. Stories on company culture
4. An application that is easy to fill out. i.e greenhouse.io Indeed, Glassdoor, or a form with a file for a cover letter and resume Greenhouse can be linked with LinkedIn.
5. Social Sharing buttons for job postings

Creating Engaging Job descriptions

The function head, Marketing, and HR need to collaborate to write job descriptions that convince applicants to apply, similar to copy-writing for commercial offerings.

Creating a Great Candidate Experience

Providing candidates with a great recruiting experience is key. Everything should be transparent to candidates. At the end of the recruiting process, it is important to solicit candidate feedback to refine and hone your recruiting process.

New Hire Onboarding and Reducing Turnover.

Make sure new hires feel welcome and are trained properly coordinating with the managers and functional heads of each department because roles had different needs and requirements for success.

Empowering and providing incentives to employees

Encourage employees to share company content and jobs on LinkedIn. Also, encourage employee referrals with incentives for referrals that are hired.

If you are not happy with the amounts of applications post the jobs on LinkedIn and Indeed to widen the applicant pools. Niche site may work as well.

This is how to use Marketing to build a great Talent Brand.

Who is hiring?

I surveyed my audience of Recruiters and Hiring Managers to which roles are they hiring.

Based on the answers Sales is the highest at 50 %.

Specific data on top jobs in demand can be found here.

How have you used marketing to build your talent and employer brand?

Share your thoughts.

Additional places to find my content and blog

WordPress: https://dangalante.me/

Tumblr: http://www.askdangalante.com/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/today/author/DanGalante

Medium https://medium.com/@DanGalante

YouTube https://www.youtube.com/trendsettingsm

Anchor https://anchor.fm/dangalante

About Me

I’m a Strategic Marketer with Field Sales, Sales Enablement, Content Creation, and, Classroom Teacher/Trainer skill-sets using Marketing to drive Sales/Growth.

As a Marketer, I’ve worked with Start-Ups, a Political Campaign, and a Digital Marketing Conference.

I’m certified in Inbound Marketing with classes in Marketing, Product Management, Product Marketing, SEO, SEM.

Before teaching, I was an Outside Sales and Marketing Rep. selling and marketing dental products to Dentists using consultative selling, trade show marketing, field marketing, and market research.

I publish Sales, Marketing & Social Media Today a blog covering industry events and trends.

I’m seeking a full-time role in:

Inbound Marketing, Digital Marketing, Content Marketing, Product Marketing, Demand Generation, Social Media Marketing, Sales Enablement Enablement, Sales Strategy, Marketing Strategy, Employer Branding, Recruitment Marketing.

Open on title, industry, company, location, and level. Reach out on LinkedIn or at dan@dangalante.com to start a conversation.

When marketing and selling a product or service, it is important to ask two questions to understand your buyers.

1.What motivates people to buy a product or service?

2.How do people find a product or service to buy?

I surveyed my LinkedIn audience for answers.

1. What motivates people to buy a product or service?

People buy a product or service to: solve a problem, meet a need, or fulfill a want or desire. 49% buy products and services to solve a problem, meet a need, or fulfill a desire. 27% wanted to solve a problem, 16 % want to meet a need, and 8% wanted to fulfill a want or desire.

2. How do people find a product or service to buy?

People find and buy products or services through word of mouth, social media, online search, and,/or product reviews. Of those surveyed, none said they found or bought products from seller calls or emails. No one found or bought products attending trade shows or events; this can be because of the pandemic.

63 % found or bought products from social channels or word of mouth, and 37% found or bought products or services from online searches or product reviews.

These findings suggest businesses need to create products and services that are customer-centric. Businesses need a great reputation to survive in a competitive marketplace.

Answering these questions will help businesses develop, create and, position products and services customers want to buy.

Your approach will vary depending on your industry.

What motivates customers to buy your products and services?

How do your customers find products and services?

Join the conversation.