5 Steps That Helped Increase LinkedIn Search Appearances Five-Fold

Did you know that every minute there happen 177,000 Tweets, 700,000 Facebook messages, 2 million YouTube views, and 7,610 LinkedIn searches [well, according to this source, at least]? It is the latter that impresses me most, as with the former three stats, we’re talking an ocean of data, whereas with LinkedIn searches, we’re looking at a very focused type of activity — professional searches.

LinkedIn is “the world’s largest professional network on the Internet with 161 million members” aboard, and “approximately two new members” signing up every per second [source]. Mind-blowing, isn’t it? Per LinkedIn itself they are actually “on pace to surpass 5.3 billion” searches in 2012. Dividing this by the number of minutes in a year, we arrive at nearly 10,084 professionally-oriented searches a minute, or 168 searches every second.

Wouldn’t you, as a professional no matter what it is that you do, want to take a bite of this pie of (tremendous) opportunity?! So I thought too; and without any prior study or experience went in to improve my LinkedIn profile. And what do you know! With very little effort put into the optimization of my profile, my appearances in LinkedIn search results increased nearly five-fold in two months [going from 65 in the week of May 6 to 324 in the week of July 7]:

Surely many will want to know what exactly it was that I did. And that’s what this post is for… It was the improvement in 5 specific areas of the profile that led to it. Try doing the same and see it goes for you:

1. Optimize Job Titles

As you can see below, I focused on the core things that I do: affiliate marketing, affiliate (program) management, speaking, and consulting:

2. Fill out Publications

Whether you have a list like mine, or a more modest one, it doesn’t matter. Do enter them there, using the space provided for descriptions too.

3. Enter Honors & Awards

This is another great section not to overlook. Build your credibility!

4. Expand the Summary

Use this one to the max! Present yourself beautifully; and remember to use the keywords that you want to be found by:

5. Choose your Skills & Expertise

This is one of my favorite sections. Here you can choose both the already-populated “specialties” (the ones that other people chose before you), and also enter your own:

Good luck; and if you have your own LinkedIn optimization experience to share, I’d love to learn from you! The comments area under this post is all yours.

3 Free Create-an-Infographic Tools to Use for Personal Branding

Infographics are powerful data visualization tools, but have you ever thought of using them for personal branding?

I’ve got some great news for you today — not only the above is possible, but there are also a number of free online tools you can use to create them. Here are three of my personal favorites (by the way, as all of my posts, the below one is not sponsored in any way, but reflects my personal experience(s) and preference(s)):

1. Vizualize.me [website | Twitter]

They do exactly what they promise — “visualize your resume in one click.” You just sign in with your LinkedIn username and password, and they do the rest. Furthermore, you may customize your infographic choosing between 6 different “themes”, and also tweak your “styles”. Click on the below “thumbnail” of mine to see what to expect from the default (read: non-customized) output:

2. re.vu [website | Twitter]

Even thought I’m listing this one second, it is by far my most favorite tool out of the three. Their slogan — “Don’t send a resume. Share your story.” — deeply resonates with my own approach to things (from training and speaking to raising up my daughter). They also have a “LinkedIn Importer”, which pulls all your information from your LinkedIn profile, after which you can customize it by hand. Click the below image to see how my default infographic ended up looking like:

3. Brazen.me [website | Twitter]

This Facebook app by Brazen Careerist allows you to create an infographic-type resume by pulling data both from your Facebook profile, and from your LinkedIn account. 10 “color schemes” are available for convenient customization. Also, their “Career Portfolio” function is fun to check out. Here’s what my Brazen infographic looks like (click the image to view the dynamic version):

As always, I want this post to be a learning experience for all of us. So, if you’re particularly fond of other related tools, please do mention them below.