Director at [Firm Name]. That’s the headline on a lot of principals’ LinkedIn profiles, because it’s what LinkedIn tends to fill in from your current job if you never touch it, and plenty of people never do. Underneath it there’s usually an About section that’s either empty or a pasted CV, and a last post congratulating somebody on a work anniversary. For a prospective client or a referrer checking you out, your LinkedIn profile is often the next place they look after your page on the firm website, and it can quietly undo the good work that page did.
Why your own LinkedIn profile matters more than the firm’s page
Plenty of firms put their LinkedIn effort into the company page, which makes sense on paper, and the company page has its place. Referrals are made to people, though, and when a client or the accountant who referred them goes looking for Sarah, it’s Sarah’s profile that turns up under her name. If you’re splitting the work between the two, know that a company page can’t repost anything from your personal profile, so each one needs its own original posts.
Start with your LinkedIn profile headline
The headline is the line that follows your name around LinkedIn, under every comment you leave and at the top of every post, so it does more work than anything else on the profile. Swap Director at [Firm Name] for a plain sentence about who you help and where. “Family lawyer in Moreton Bay, mostly helping parents sort out arrangements without going to court” tells a stranger more in one line than a job title ever could, and an accountant might go with something like “Accountant for trade businesses on the northside who’d rather hear from you in March than in June.” It takes about two minutes, and LinkedIn’s own help page on editing your headline shows you where to find it.
Make the About section match your bio
The About section is where most LinkedIn profiles go quiet, and it’s the easiest part to fix, because if you’ve rewritten your bio you’ve already written it. Take the first paragraph of your professional bio, the bit in the first person about who you work with and how, and paste it in, so the person checking you out on LinkedIn meets the same human being they met on your website. Use the same photo as the site while you’re there, then pin your bio page and one or two things you’ve written to the Featured section, which gives a curious reader somewhere to go next.
While you’re in there, swap the default blue banner behind your photo for something that says what you do and where, even if it’s just the firm’s name and your area over a photo of the office, so the whole LinkedIn profile looks like somebody actually lives there.
Posting without becoming a LinkedIn person
This is where most principals tap out, and I understand why, because a lot of LinkedIn reads like people competing to be thrilled about something. You don’t need to post every day, and nobody needs your morning routine. A post every week or two that sounds like the conversations you have with clients is plenty, whether that’s the question three people asked you this month and how you answered it, or the thing you wish every new client knew before the first meeting.
Commenting properly on posts from people you already swap referrals with counts as well, and it keeps your name in front of the people most likely to send somebody your way, because every comment carries your headline with it.
The easiest way to keep posts sounding like you is the same method as the bio. Talk for a few minutes into your phone about something a client asked you this week, get it transcribed, tidy it a little and post it. It’s very close to how the content work we do with principals starts, with them talking and us shaping it.
Check your LinkedIn profile like a stranger would
Open your LinkedIn profile on your phone, logged out if you can, and read the headline and the first few lines of the About section the way a prospective client would. If it sounds like the person your best clients describe when they recommend you, you’re in good shape, and if it still says “Director at a firm”, that’s the first two minutes sorted.
If you’d like a hand with yours, I do a free visibility check where I go through your LinkedIn profile and your firm’s site the way a prospective client would and send back the first three things I’d change.
