As you know from previous posts, your real estate virtual assistant is taking a social media with Social Media Magic.  Today I want to share with you how to strategically optimize your LinkedIn profile.

LinkedIn is a network of over 55 million professionals who are interested in exchanging information, ideas and opportunities. It is a ‘place to find and be found.’ You can find people who will be helpful in building your business. And you can be found by people needing your real estate services.

Your profile is your online business card. It is the first glimpse of who you are. It is a showcase of your experience and expertise. And it needs to be strategically optimized for people to be able to find you. There are 2 reasons to optimize your profile. One is for the computer and one is for people. Optimization of the computer includes the strategic use of keywords. People don’t search for you by your name but by the services you provide or the company you are affiliated with. You also want people to look at your profile and think, “Wow, this is a person I need to do business with.”

Prior to optimizing my profile, if I searched ‘real estate virtual assistant’, I showed up on page 3 of the results. After optimization, I show up as #2 on the first page. Certainly, a better place to be if I want someone to find me. Let’s look at the elements of a profile and how to best make them work for you.

1. Your Name

Keep this clean. If your goal is to attract buyers and sellers, don’t clutter it up with designations such as ABR and CRS. Most people don’t know what these are. If your goal is to network with other real estate professionals, adding designations would be important. If you were known professionally by a maiden name and people would search for you by that name, definitely add it.

2. Your photo

LinkedIn is a network of professionals. You don’t want to use a photo of you water skiing. Use a professionally looking headshot with a nice background and crop it close to your face. This is not the place to use a company logo. Your goal is to build relationships and people want to see the person they are reading about.

3. Professional headline

Directly under your Name is the ‘Professional Headline’ box. This headline is extremely important and is used by the search algorithms. Keywords are king here and you want to include keywords that will be used in searching for you, such as ‘realtor’ and ‘real estate.’ You also want to include your value proposition. What is it you have to offer? Think of the ‘Professional Headline’ as your bumper sticker or 5 second elevator pitch.

It is also good to include a link to your website or blog. You can’t make it a live hyperlink, but people will see it and possible copy/paste it into their browser to learn more about you.

My old headline read ‘Owner, Team Leader for myREassistant.’ Most people don’t use ‘owner’ or ‘team leader’ as search terms. My new headline reads, ‘Real estate virtual assistant offering services at http://myreassistant.com.’

4. Title

The title is also a place to strategically use keywords. One trick for showing up in searches is to use the same keywords in your summary. Think about the phrases that someone will use to search for you and use them in the title and your summary. Use something like ‘[City] real estate expert.’

My old title was ‘Owner, Team Leader for myREassistant.’ My new title is ‘Real Estate Virtual Assistant I Real Estate Marketing I Transaction Management I Social Media at myREassistant.com.’

5. Websites

This is one place on your Profile where links are hyperlinked and live. The only other place a link is hyperlinked is your Twitter url. You are allowed links to three websites.

The biggest mistake I see people making on their websites is that when they add a website, they choose in the dropdown to call it ‘My website’ or ‘My Company’ or ‘My Blog’. I don’t like any of those. What I want you to do is type in ‘Other’. When you choose ‘Other’ you can enter something descriptive. Instead of saying ‘My Website’, say ‘Search all [city] homes for sale’ or [city] real estate information.’ Choose something meaningful to people reading your profile.

I used to use ‘My Website’, ‘My blog’ and ‘My Newsletter. Now I use ‘Virtual Assistant services’, ‘Real estate success tips’ and ‘build a referral business.’

6. Twitter

LinkedIn is interfacing with Twitter and you can add your Twitter handle here.

7. Public Profile

Go into your profilepage, click on this little ‘Edit’ link right next to your public profile and claim your vanity URL and add it here. Your want this link to be neat, clean and something you put thought into. You don’t want a bunch of meaningless numbers and letters in a default link.

8. Summary

As I mentioned previously, one of the tricks to you summary is the use of keywords and key phrases. You are allowed approximately 2,000 characters. Use all of them. This is your opportunity for you to put your message in front of somebody who’s looking for you or your services. You want to engage people and one of the best ways is to tell mini-stories about how you helped someone. Write a short evidence of success and include your value proposition. The summary is a marketing tool communicating how you can help someone.

At the bottom of your Summary you can add ‘Specialties’. Be sure to use your keywords and key phrases here.

9. Applications

There are a ton of applications. A couple you might want to consider is the Slide Share. You can use this to upload a Power Point presentation. The other is Blog Link. This allows your blog posts to be brought into your LinkedIn profile.

10. Connections

You want to think about the goal of your LinkedIn network before you start adding connections. If you want to network with other real estate agents, you will want to invite other agents to join your network. If your want to focus on prospective buyers and sellers, you will want to invite your sphere, clients and local businesses. You will want to have a ‘strong’ network that is meaningful and provides value rather than just a network large in numbers that is not going to benefit your business in any way.

When asking someone to connect with you, be sure to include a personal note in your connection request saying why you want to connect with that person. Let the person know what benefit it is to them to connect with you.

11. Recommendations

There is nothing wrong with asking for recommendations, but it is much more personal to ask outside of the network rather than using the LinkedIn request. You might want to send a congratulations email to a buyer or seller after closing and in the email ask for a recommendation on your LinkedIn page and include the link to your page.

Strategically optimizing you LinkedIn profile will increase your chances of being found by people who need your services. Please contact me if you have any questions or need help with your LinkedIn profile.