This week’s episode of Good Girls Get Rich is brought to you by Uplevel Media CEO and LinkedIn expert, Karen Yankovich. In this episode, Karen shares 3 ways you can update your LinkedIn profile.

As you’re staying at home during the COVID-19 pandemic, now is the perfect time to update your LinkedIn profile and make sure it’s reaching its maximum potential.

#GoodGirlsGetRich

We want to hear your thoughts on this episode! Leave us a message on Speakpipe or email us at info@karenyankovich.com.

About the Episode:

Are you stuck at home amid the coronavirus pandemic? Now is the perfect time to take a look at your LinkedIn profile and make sure it’s reaching its maximum potential. Here are 3 ways you can improve your profile:

Your Profile Header Image

The header image is one of the first things people see when they visit your LinkedIn profile, and you need to make sure it shows who you are, what you do, and what you have to offer. Use it to show the world what product you sell. Update it to promote your upcoming event. Tell your fans how they can subscribe to your email updates. There are many ways to make the header image work for you… use it to your advantage!

Your “About” Section

The “About” section of your LinkedIn profile is a tool to show others what you’re all about. Don’t be shy! Tell others all about yourself and what you do. The more information you share about yourself, the better search results you’ll get on Google… more visibility!

Your “Featured” Section

The “Featured” section, which used to be the “Media” section, is a new update on LinkedIn. This section allows you to feature what’s important to you. Have an event coming up? Add it to your “Featured” section. Just released a podcast episode? Share it in “Featured.” Use this section of LinkedIn to promote what’s important to you.

As we’re all stuck at home with little to do, take advantage of this extra time, update your LinkedIn profile, and reap the benefits!

Episode Spotlights:

  • Where to find everything for this week’s episode: karenyankovich.com/114
  • Introducing this episode’s topic (2:58)
  • Taking control of your personal brand (6:37)
  • Why your LinkedIn header image is important (8:18)
  • What makes a good LinkedIn “About” section (11:31)
  • The value of the “Featured” section on LinkedIn (13:56)
  • Recap of the episode (19:33)
  • Info about Karen’s weekly live webinar (20:31)

Resources Mentioned in the Episode:

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Read the Transcript

Karen Yankovich 0:00
You’re listening to the Good Girls Get Rich Podcast episode 114.

Intro 0:06
Welcome to the Good Girls Get Rich Podcast with your host, Karen Yankovich. This is where we embrace how good you are, girl. Stop being the best kept secret in town, learn how to use simple LinkedIn and social media strategies, and make the big bucks.

Karen Yankovich 0:23
Hello there. I’m your host, Karen Yankovich, and we’re on episode 114 of the Good Girls Get Rich Podcast. And at the time that I am recording this, I live in New Jersey, and in New Jersey we are self-quarantining due to the coronavirus and the COVID-19 pandemic. And you know, the world’s upside down a little bit, right? So I’ve shifted my business I’m sure that you’ve shifted yours or you’re thinking about shifting yours. One of the things that I’ve been doing if you haven’t seen them yet, is creating daily live videos. How can you Make $1,000 Roday? And I think it’s important that we understand that while we might not have control over a lot of the things in our life right now, right? We don’t have control over what our employers do with our paychecks. We don’t really have control over what our customers do, although we can have a little bit more control over that, you know, we don’t have necessarily even control of what the government does, we’re our families do, we do always have control over what we do? And we always can count on ourselves to show up in a way that is confident and that is going to make an impact, you know, a positive impact in our lives moving forward. And I get it, let me tell you, I get it that it’s not easy. You know, I’m recording this on a Monday and I will tell you that I spent the weekend not really depressed because I’m not really a depressed person, but in a way like what the ever-living heck is going on. And when I went to bed last night, I went I went to bed thinking I need to wake up tomorrow and kick myself in my own behind, and, you know, take control over how I spend the next few weeks. Because it is, you know, it is possible I only can control what I can do right I can’t control what’s going on in the world. And what I can do is continue to support you continue to support you and learning how to continue to make a living during this crazy time. And that’s why I’m doing these Make $1,000 Today videos, you can check them out at make1ktoday.com. That gets you to my YouTube playlist. So I hope that that is inspiring you to just shake a little bit of cash out of your business and not be waiting on the government to send you a check or you know your employer to rehire you or anything like that. I’m always available for consultations if you’d like go to my LinkedIn profile. I’m going to talk to you a little bit about that today. Be go to my LinkedIn profile and there’s a button there that you can schedule some time to chat if you want to brainstorm with me about what that might look like for you. But here’s the thing, I think today is a great day to, to take a look at your LinkedIn profile. Because as you are stepping into whatever this new chapter of your life is, it’s up to you to tell the world what that looks like why you what makes you the person to support whatever it is that your support right now, right and, and your LinkedIn profile is where you tell the world what you want them to know about you. So what I’m going to do today is give you some ideas to get you just give you a couple little quick ways that you can make the biggest impact on your LinkedIn profile. While maybe you have a little bit of time, because we’re all sitting here with our phones in our hands all day long rate, or hopefully not, but at least I am way more than I should. And people are going to throw your name in a Google search, your LinkedIn profile is going to come up. So take this opportunity now where maybe you have a little more time behind your computer and create make some make some little changes to your profile that could make some big changes in your brand and your business and your career. So as usual, if you’ve listened before you love what you hear today, you know, we’d love to hear from you. So take a quick screenshot of this episode, and share it on social media tell the world that you’re listening to this show tag me, I’m @karenyankovich across all social media and I will share it with my audience and that way we both get more visibility right and that’s how we we support each other. That’s how we lift each other up in the show notes for this episode, which is at karenyankovich.com/114. You’ll see a link for Speakpipe or you can leave us an audio review. I love that! In the audio you not only, not only can you leave us an audio review, it’s kind of like a voicemail, right? You can just leave us a message with whatever it is if you have a guest you think we should have on the show speakpipe is a great way to tell us about that. If you want to be a part of my Make $1,000 Today series messaged me, you know reach out to us on Speakpipe and let me know what kind of ideas you have about shaking cash out of your business in your life in this Crazy new world of ours. And, you know, because we’re looking to book guests, we’re doing this every day. Right? So we’ve got a lot of a lot of guest opportunities on that. So check that all out. So, you know, I will just a little bit of a backstory as to why I’m doing this episode. Right before this pandemic really became a big thing here in the US. I was at a conference, Podfest Multimedia Expo Conference with 2000 people. And you know, we got to the conference, knowing that this was going on in the world knowing that it might be moving to the US but not really understanding the impact of it yet. By the end of the conference, which was like three days later, the world had shifted. I was in Florida, my parents live in Florida, so I took a train to go back with them and spend a couple days and literally didn’t stay the end up end up saying the whole week I ended up turning around and going back but what has been interesting since then, not just Podfest, but Podfest then created a virtual opportunity to kind of talk for me anyway for some people to talk to their audience about what their topic was at the show, but also independent podcast conference. And I’ll put links to both of these Facebook groups because they’re both public in the Facebook group. Both of these learning opportunities also did a two day summit in the last two days, just with lots of free information about podcasting. So I have had my head in the world of supporting podcasters since this since I was at the conference, and then I did to, you know, live virtual events for podcasters since then, and really what I was trying to get across to the podcast community and that translates to what I’m going to teach you today is you are an influencer. And whatever it is you do, you can be you can position yourself as influential. And it starts with you. It starts with you what makes you different. So it’s really been more apparent to me than that. The importance of really taking control of our personal brand. Listen, a lot of people that I work with on LinkedIn strategy are businesses, right? Sometimes they’re small businesses, and they bring me into training. Sometimes they are entrepreneurs, and they and they hire me to help them get leads. And I love doing all of those things. But for the podcast community, it’s really been more about creating a strong personal brand, so that you can get better guests so that you can get maybe to be a guest on other people’s show so that you can get great sponsors, right. And you have to take control of that. So I’m going to give you a couple tips today on how you can do this because I think whether you’re a podcaster or an entrepreneur or a small business owner, or somebody sitting here looking at your computer going, what can I be bringing to the world during this time, right? I mean, we’ve had a week or two to kind of stick our heads under our pillows and say, oh my gosh, what is this world coming to right? But you know, we got to pull ourselves out of that at some point. So when you’re ready to pull yourself out, I’m here to support you and I wanted to share that with you show you a couple ways today that you can start grabbing control over what people see when they throw your name in a Google search. And these are simple things, right? These are three simple things that you can update on your LinkedIn profile right now while you’re quarantined while you’ve got a computer and not a whole lot else to do. So the first thing I want you to look at is your header image. And that is when you pull up your profile that is what’s at the very top of your profile. And if you haven’t done anything with it, it’s just like a gray box as very, you know, doll and, and, you know, it basically just shows that you’re not paying all that much attention to your LinkedIn profile. So there are so many free tools Canva being one. Canva C-A-N-V-A, we’ll link to that in the show notes being one where you can create a header image of yourself and let me just tell you, graphics are so not my thing. I am not great at graphics, but I can create a graphic on Canva that I can put on my LinkedIn profile. So because Canva makes it so easy for us. So When you go into Canva, they don’t at the moment that I’m recording this anyway, they don’t have a template for your LinkedIn header image for the LinkedIn hero image, whatever you want to call it. So what you’re gonna want to do is create a custom image and the custom dimensions are 1584 pixels, so 1584 x 396. So 1584 x 396 are the dimensions that you want to use when you’re creating a new header image. Now, you don’t have to make this beautiful, you don’t have to add words. In fact, I kind of almost recommend you don’t, because when you pull up your profile on different types of devices, different kind of mobile devices, you know, when landscape portrait, your iPad, your computer, your profile image, which is the picture view sometimes moves around, so you don’t want your profile image to be on top of the text that you have in that. So I’m not saying you have to make this complicated. You can make this if you’re a realtor, take a beautiful picture of something that you have. That’s a second in your community, right maybe it’s springtime and the apple blossoms are in bloom take a picture of that. upload it to your header image. If you do you know if you’re a an author take a picture of your book and and just kind of just showcase what it is that you do and use this header image to showcase what it is that you do. I changed my header image a lot. I use it for kind of promo right now I have my free training up there. And you know, it lets people know that I have this free training if people are interested, right. So I change it a lot. It’s not hard to do, but it’s something that we don’t often do. So now that I’m asking you to take a couple minutes and look at your LinkedIn profile. And make some updates. Make an update to that header image. Just take some time, create a new graphic, update it, you know, in Canva, you can even create like almost like multiple graphics of the same size, right? So you might want to create a couple like if you’re a realtor, create four different ones for four different cities. Write and then update them. If you have if you know you have something coming up, but you’re not marketing it yet, update it right now with something that’s more generic something maybe that’s list building for you. But then make another one and be ready. When you’re when the time comes to update your header image to whatever it is you’re currently going to be marketing. Again, I could talk about this forever different ideas for that you can always join me in my facebook group as well, which is completely free. And we’ll link to that in the show notes as well. And we can brainstorm What a great header image might be for you. The second thing I want you to think about is your about section. Now this is really interesting. And this is really cool because the about section, let me just talk about the about section for one second. the about section used to be called your summary. And in fact when you go to edit it at least in my case, it still says summary. It says edit about but then it has summary there, right? So your about section used to be 2000 characters, but it’s been changed. Now it’s been changed that now you can update it to 2600 characters, they’ve given us an additional 600 characters. So that’s a lot more characters, right when 2000 to 2600 is a lot more characters. So it’s giving us more time, more, more opportunity to really tell a story. So when they change this from summary to about, think about this from a psychological standpoint, it’s a tiny little change on your LinkedIn profile, but it’s I think it has big psychological impacts. A summary is a book it’s boring, it’s just you know, like the summary of a book and it’s just the you know, here’s, here’s a little bit about what the book is like. But about is interesting, right? You know, anything about website marketing, you’ve probably know that your about page on your website is often the most visited page on your site. Because we’re nosy, right? We want to know more about the people that we do business with. So when you’re creating your about section, make it interesting. Don’t make it boring. Make it in first person Tell me a story. Tell me about you tell me what makes you interesting what you’re passionate about about the business, you’re doing right? And use all 2600 characters because those characters feed Google. They feed LinkedIn. They feed it, they feed it when people are searching. So think about what are people searching for on LinkedIn that you want to come up as a search result if you want to be a podcast guest, put that in your about section. So when people search for that you come up if you want to be a keynote speaker, put it in your about section. If you are a money mindset coach, make sure you’re using those words in your about section, right, and feed these platforms so that when people are searching for this stuff, your profile comes up. So again, all 2600 characters make it interesting, make it a story and take some time to really recreate this section. You’re welcome to model mine. I actually am always changing mine so I don’t even know what mine’s gonna look like by the time this episode goes live, but you’re always welcome to model it. The last thing I want to talk to you about here that you can make a little change on, and this is cool. This is a really cool. So LinkedIn has recently taken the media that used to be living in our about section. Right. So at the bottom of your about section, there was an opportunity to put media in there. And if you scroll down to your experience section, you’ll see what I’m talking about, you can still add media to your experience section the way we used to be able to edit our about section. Now I’m going to qualify this by saying there are still a few people that don’t have this feature yet. So if you’re still seeing the media that’s across your about section, I still want you to listen to this because this is going to apply to you. Even today, even though you don’t have this feature. And I’m going to tell you why in a minute. But what LinkedIn is doing is they are rolling this out slowly but I think the majority of the people are seeing this now. They’re pulling the media out of the about section and they’re creating a section called featured. And these this featured section is immensely valuable. These are giant tick boxes that really stand out from the little tiny media boxes that we used to have before compared to the little tiny media boxes that we used to have before. And you still have the ability to put a whole bunch of different things in your featured section. But I am a fan the way it’s laid out right now, and this could change. This is a brand new section. But at this moment in time, I’m a fan of only using two because when you use more than two, it becomes like a carousel with those arrows that you can click to make it to go through them. And then it gives people like something else to do besides click on one of them. I want them to click on one of them right. So what I’m currently doing right now for my featured section, is I have one of the boxes I’m using and I’m updating it every week for my most current podcast episode and then the other one I created a box that says apply for a complimentary strategy call. Now I have been doing complimentary. I mean most business coaches do complimentary strategy calls right? I’ve been doing this for years, and I’ve had this on my LinkedIn profile for years. And I’ve gotten a few people book calls from my LinkedIn profile over the years, but I’m getting multiple people booking calls from this section a week now, because this I, what I did was I wanted to create, I went back into Canva that we talked about in the first tip that I talked about. And I created a box in Canva that just says ready to learn how to leverage LinkedIn, apply for a complimentary set strategy called click to schedule. And when you click that box, it takes you right to my calendar, so that you can immediately schedule time to chat with me. This is huge. This immediately monetizes LinkedIn by doing these kinds of things. Now, what you’ve also can do and the thing I can’t imagine that I’m ever going to take down this apply for a complimentary strategy call. But I’m always testing other things in the on the box on the left, for example, I did a LinkedIn live with Marie Forleo a couple months ago, and it got a lot of action and it was a lot of fun to do. And one of the things you can do With your featured section is feature a post. So if you’ve got a post that’s doing really well on LinkedIn, like an actual post, like maybe it’s a blog post, or maybe it’s just a question you ask your audience, you can feature that post. And when they click on it, it will go right to that. So by featuring the interview with Marie Forleo, I got even more people that were able to click on it, which was really cool. All kinds of things you can put in here. The other thing that’s really interesting about this section that’s different than way than the way it was before, and it’s different than the way the media still is, in the experience section is, when you click on these links in the experience section, you go straight to the link that you’ve identified there. Whereas before you would go to this interim kind of a holding page. So it wasn’t a direct link. You had to click at least twice to get to the place you wanted people to get to and I don’t know you lose people that way. Right? This you go straight there. So I’m still experimenting with this section. But I am telling you it is one of the best changes LinkedIn is made in a long time. So the third thing I want you to do while you’re quarantine is look at the media you have in your about section. Or maybe you don’t have any media, maybe it’s time to add some media. And make sure if you have this featured section, make sure you’re really intentional about using it with. I like to two specific types of media. Here’s the thing. That’s important to know, even if you don’t have this feature yet. When I look at everybody’s profile on LinkedIn, I see it the way I have it. So let’s just say Suzy doesn’t have this featured thing yet. When I look at Susie’s profile, I see her media as a featured section even though she doesn’t. Okay, and when she looks at mine, she doesn’t see it as featured. She sees it as media in the about section. So what’s important to know about that is you need to do this even if you don’t have the feature yet, because everybody that does have the feature sees your media the way I’m saying here right now. So you want to still do this, even if you don’t have it pulled out of your about section yet, in the featured section, I know this is a little complicated. But listen, I don’t make this up. I’m just reporting it. So you want to make sure that you’re picking choose really important types of media creating a really strong graphic to go along with it, and send people to that section. Again, if you’re, if you’re not sure how to do this, or you are looking for support on how to how to, you know, really take advantage of these things that we talked about today. I’m here to help you and I’m going to tell you a couple ways we can do that. But let me just recap real quick. The first thing I want you to do is update your header image 1584 x 396 simple to do take some time, make sure it’s updated and relevant. The second thing is update your about section you have 600 more characters than we’ve had before. Make sure that it is story based easy to read something that is going to intrigue me and interest me make sure you have a call to action in there. Make sure it’s first person I know it’s a lot of rules, but you’re gonna be so happy when you’ve got this done. Because it’s really going to be valuable to your business and may help bring the profits to your business. That’s why we’re doing this right not so that we can look pretty so that we can have more money in our bank account. And the last thing is to be really intentional about two pieces of media to use in your featured section on your LinkedIn profile. So in addition to and I may I, by the way, I broke all the rules that I teach in this episode by saying one call to action one call to action. I gave you a million calls to action in this episode here, but I’m going to give you one that you absolutely want to take advantage of and that is this. In addition to doing the daily videos that Make $1,000 Today videos, I am doing a weekly live webinar because what I know is when people start to see more about you on your LinkedIn profile, when they start to maybe invest in you on a smaller level that we’re teaching in the make one k today, there are going to be a certain number of people that will want more from you. And LinkedIn is not the place for you to sell your hundred dollar programs because I want you on the phone with people and you cannot get on the phone with enough people To make enough money at $100 a pop. So what I’m doing is I’m brainstorming every single week with you, I’m doing a short webinar or short workshop. And then I’m sending out as long as you want to brainstorm with everyone that’s on the workshop live about what Your $5,000 Offer can be on LinkedIn. And here’s the thing, all of the things we talked about today need to be in line with that, right. So if you have a podcast, if you have a blog, or if you’re doing video, make sure that that is in line with what you’re, you know, maybe an introductory offer that you’re driving people to, which is where you make the thousand dollars in a day. But make sure that offer is in line with something that is a higher end offer. People will pay for faster results. We have lots of people now that are working more than ever, right? They’re working from home, they’re homeschooling their kids, they’re swamped. They need our help. Okay, this is not the time to stop offering what you provide in the world. It’s the time to continue to offer it. So your continued is to continuing to support people through this crazy time. Yes, I mean, I am providing free life videos every single day free weekly workshops every single week. But obviously at some point, I am a for profit business. If you want more, I’m going to tell you what that looks like. That’s what I want you to be able to do too. So join me every Wednesday, if you go to create your5000offer.com you can, you can register for that workshop. I love to have you there. And we can brainstorm what Your $5,000 Offer is, but maybe even what the featured images or your header image might be, that will be in line with that $5k offers that you get people into that offer when you’re ready. So I hope that this was valuable to you. I mean, you got no excuse. If you’re sitting around at your computer. Listen, I work from home. So this really shouldn’t be all that different from me, but somehow it is. So take some time position yourself so that you are ready for the business when it comes in. There’s so much more to this than I can talk about on this short podcast. But position it make sure that your LinkedIn profile is is pivoted to go with the kinds of Things that you’ve you’re pivoting to in your business I’m here to help you decide what that might be. Again free workshops every single week. Happy to do that. So you join my facebook group at karenyankovich.com/facebookgroup, watch the weekly videos at make1ktoday.com. They’re broadcasts across in my in my Facebook groups that’s the best way to get notified of those. And join me every week for the your5000offer.com workshop. Let’s lift each other up here. We need each other, we need each other. Let me help you so that you can help the people that you need to help share this podcast. Remember, take a quick screenshot of this episode on your phone and share that on social so I can share it with my audience. The bottom line is I want you to be massively successful in 2020. I want this to be simple for you. I want to look at this time as a time for us to really evaluate what the next season of our life and our business and our careers are going to look like. And innovation comes from challenging times like this. So Let’s do this together. I’ll see you next week for another episode of the Good Girls Get Rich Podcast.