LinkedIn – the world’s largest professional networking platform. With 260 million monthly active users (of which 40 percent access the site daily), it is essential for businesses today to have a presence on the platform.

Not only can LinkedIn be used to increase brand awareness, but it is a tool to help recruit top talent and position brands as industry thought leaders. When it comes to setting up a LinkedIn profile, remember to optimize first to improve performance. Here’s how:

#1 – Images are Everything!

Visuals grab people’s attention, which means profile pictures and banner images are the first thing visitors see. Remember, LinkedIn is for professional networking so it’s important these images are professional in nature and an accurate representation of the brand and its culture. Think professional headshots when determining if a picture is right for a LinkedIn profile. For companies, an outdated team photo with members who may not be employed anymore should also be avoided as a banner image.

For companies, use the company logo as the profile image. Remember to size it first to proper specs before uploading. For the banner image, consider a textured background that includes other brand elements, such as taglines, qualifiers or secondary brand colors. Not only will adding these images make the business profile more inviting, but company pages with profile pictures get six times more visitors than those without.

#2 – Who Are You?

In addition to compelling images, it is important to have a detailed “about us” summary that explains who the company is and what you do. Keep the “about us” summary short and to the point and use keywords in the summary to assist with SEO. Keywords are recommended to align with key service offerings and/or products. For example, for GRIT, keywords in the “about us” summary include strategy, marketing, branding, design and public relations. Remember, keep content professional and relevant to the business goals.

#3 – Provide Key Information

To have an optimized profile, it is imperative all information fields are filled out completely. In fact, according to Hootsuite, profiles that have complete company pages generally receive twice as many visitors as those with incomplete pages.

Key information includes the business’ website URL, contact information, address, industry and company size. Visitors want to know the location, industry served, size of the company and examples of work. Having this information available will not only create a better user experience, but it will make the business profile more discoverable.

#4 – Post & Engage

Now that the business profile is set up and optimized, it is important to stay active to keep the company in front of its audiences. The best way to do this is to post often. Share blogs, whitepapers and industry news that is relevant. Comment and engage with content connections share. By staying top-of-mind and engaging with others on the platform, the company will stand out on LinkedIn.

At GRIT, we have experience working with a variety of social media platforms. For more tips and tricks to optimizing your business’ LinkedIn profile or for help managing your company’s social media platforms, reach out to us today. We are here to help you dig deeper so your company stands out in your industry!