LinkedIn is a platform for various professional functions, from job seeking and closing sales with new prospects to marketing your business. However, to succeed in these functions, you must polish your LinkedIn profile and craft a good LinkedIn summary. Have you ever read a person’s LinkedIn summary and felt like scrolling directly to the end? This is proof that a LinkedIn summary may make or break a person’s lead generation efforts. With LinkedIn’s 800 Million users, you could reap a lot by having an appropriately crafted summary.
Writing a LinkedIn summary isn’t an easy task. Most people find it difficult to attract prospects using their LinkedIn summary, which is a huge loss to any sales professional. So, how do you craft an appealing LinkedIn summary? In this post, you will learn the aspects of a good LinkedIn summary and 8 creative and original examples of LinkedIn summaries. But first:
What is a LinkedIn Summary?
A LinkedIn summary, also called LinkedIn about section, is the block of text that appears below your profile photo or just before your list of prior and current roles. Although you can type up to 2000 characters, only the first 3 lines can be seen by your visitors until they click “see more.”
Why is a LinkedIn Summary Essential?
You might wonder why a good LinkedIn summary is important. However, prominence is the most vital feature to consider; when visitors see your profile, they will see your name, face, and details about you, followed by your summary.
It is your first opportunity to make an excellent impression on people. That impression matters whether you are on LinkedIn to close new sales, expand your professional networks, or find a job. If you make a good impression, people can have a chance of knowing who you are or what you are looking for. Are you looking for new job opportunities? Ensure you clearly explain that to avoid a potential recruiter passing on you.
What Are The Features Of A Good LinkedIn Summary?
It is hard to define the elements of a successful LinkedIn summary because the definition of success most likely varies from person to person. However, the features below tend to be common in the most effective LinkedIn summaries:
1. Unique
The people reading your LinkedIn summary have read many other summaries. Hence, if your summary sounds basic or not original and is similar to another one that came earlier, the reader will quickly forget about it. Ensure that your LinkedIn summary is unique, highlighting skills, traits, and accomplishments that make you unique.
2. Hooking and Strong start
Your LinkedIn summary should have a strong start, a hook that draws in your readers. This can be a unique perspective, an inspirational quote, or a bold opinion. Starting your LinkedIn summary with boring, common, and cold statements is a sure way to lose your audience.
3. Concise
In any communication, conciseness is vital. Ensure you state essential details within the smallest possible space. If you go for long on one idea, even the most patient person may lose interest. Every sentence in your LinkedIn summary should have a specific purpose: recounting an accomplishment, displaying your personality, or showcasing your skills.
4. Your Accomplishments
When writing a resume, you may have heard the advice that it is better to list your specific accomplishments than your different proficiencies or skills. Try including several achievements on your LinkedIn summary, including the goals you’ve met, awards you’ve won, and any other things that make you proud of your accomplishments.
5. Keyword-Rich
Ensure your LinkedIn summary is keyword-rich, especially when finding a job. LinkedIn’s search engine works like the other engines; whenever a person searches, the search engine scans for profiles containing keywords that match the query or similar. Think of the phrases or keywords relevant to your position and optimise your profile to include them.
6. Error-Free.
Your LinkedIn summary must be entirely error-free no matter what. Although punctuation or a simple spelling error might not seem to be a big deal to you, it makes a bad initial impression. Proofread your work and ensure it’s error-free. Seek the help of another person to recheck and proofread it.
7. Elements Of Past, Future, And Present
A good LinkedIn profile will also cover the elements of your past. What are your accomplishments before your present position? What is your current role? What do you plan to do in the coming years?
8. Easily Scannable
Although you could count on each person that discovers your profile to read your entire LinkedIn summary, it never happens. Instead, people tend to “skim and scan” your LinkedIn summary, looking for details that make you stand out and interpreting the core content. Hence, ensure your LinkedIn summary is scannable with short, well-spaced paragraphs, numbered lists, bulleted lists, and other kinds of formatting that make content easier on the visitor’s eyes.
9. Call to Action
A good LinkedIn summary also includes a call to action, inviting the viewers to contact you or buy from you. What do you want the reader to do after reading your LinkedIn summary?
Examples of Creative LinkedIn Summaries
Career LinkedIn Summaries
Having considered the features, what does a good LinkedIn summary look like? Below are the five creative and original examples of LinkedIn summary. We will consider various careers and roles in these examples to bring out the features discussed above.
1. Content Writing or Content Marketing
Are you searching for an experienced person to handle your different business needs, from writing and marketing content to lead generation?
Then search no further.
As an experienced digital marketer and freelance content writer, I have been helping various brands and businesses with their content marketing and writing needs for over 5 years, and I can also help you with:
- Pinterest marketing
- Search engine optimization
- Building a website
- Web and blog content writing
- LinkedIn lead generation
- Content editing and proofreading
I pride myself on being the Founder of WriterHub, where I Instill content writing and digital marketing skills to newbies. We also help brands reach new heights through targeted content and LinkedIn Lead generation.
Contact me on LinkedIn or via mail at info@writerhub.com for:
- LinkedIn lead generation
- Business digital marketing solutions
- Content writing and marketing for your business.
2. The Software Engineer
I’m living my dream.
I have always been a great problem solver, a technophile with a high obsession with the latest devices and technologies, and an independent introvert. Currently, I am a work-from-home software engineer with IteCorp, Inc.
I started learning to program in my teen years, although it was less a career focus and more of a hobby. After a college education in Business Administration and continued pursuit of my hobby, I realised that software engineering was my right career path.
Since then, I’ve worked on a dozen freelance projects and been involved in several notable startups. Presently, I’m a senior developer with the amazing software development team at IteCorp, Inc and learning machine vision on my own time.
I’m well versed with various programming languages, including Python, Javascript, Java, Kotlin, Scala, and frameworks like Angular, React native, Spring, and Laravel. I’m eager to meet other developers; let us connect!
3. The Recruiter
I enjoy meeting new people and finding them their dream job.
To me, recruitment is a matchmaking service. Through mutual, ongoing communication, I can learn much about a candidate’s ambitions, long-term goals, and guiding principles.
I can then work to see whether they are a good fit for our organisation. If they are, the conversation goes on.
I’ve worked with various organisations, from small nonprofits to fortune 500 companies. Today, I am the Senior Recruitment Officer at JoBizz, Inc. Presently, my focus is finding suitable candidates for careers in sales, software development, advertising, and marketing.
I’m also experienced in project management and data analytics. I’m working to acquire advanced human resource skills to transition executive recruiting.
4. Head of Research and Development at MechMind
Technology is why you can read summary posts on your bed or communicate with your distant uncle over the phone.
I am driven by solving complex real-world issues using innovative emerging technologies and starting new businesses. Currently, I am the Head of research and development at MechMind, where we use virtual reality to bring advertisements to life.
Over the last 8 years, I’ve worked as a developer intern junior developer and started my own company, MechMind. My goal is to have MechMind Listed on the NSE within one and a half years.
5. The Salesperson
I like talking but love listening more. That’s why I am an effective salesperson, or at the least, what I feel makes me stand out as a salesperson.
As to whether I am effective, I’ll let the numbers speak for themselves:
- Consistently hitting 140% sales goals each year
- Responsible for over $600k in new sales
- Leading the senior sales at PrimeSales, Inc 6, years running
I constantly search for opportunities to meet and engage with new people, improve my skills, and humble myself before this city’s professionals, who always amaze me. To know more regarding me or for a cup of coffee discussing sales, reach out to me through email at sales@primesales.com.
Sales LinkedIn Summary
As stated above, LinkedIn summaries differ based on various factors, including purpose. Why are you putting the summary out there? For that reason, sales summaries are a bit different compared to career LinkedIn summaries. In sales, you are looking to generate leads and conversions. Hence, being as convincing as possible and expressing your experiences is the best tool to have. Below are 3 examples of sales LinkedIn summaries
1) Demonstrate Your Passion
I am a passionate educator, leveraging podcasts to narrow educational disparities and improve listening skills. Research shows that although we spend 90% of our time listening, only 10% of us do it effectively. Consequently, this takes a toll on the student’s long-term educational accomplishments.
Poducate partners with Apple have crafted over 100 curriculum-aligned podcasts in science, history, and social studies. We have a first-of-its-kind listening assessment in education, offering real-time to administrators and teachers on a student’s listening abilities.
I have skills in government procurement processes and market forces driving revenue for early-stage educational technology organisations. I firmly believe that empowering educators is the best way to improve students’ performance. Are you a school administrator? Visit our website and create a podcast account for your school.
2) Show Some Personality
I spent five years pursuing a career as a DJ, mixing music and selling copies for cash or posting it on my YouTube channel. I got married and was blessed with kids, two girls. It was then that I realised my job couldn’t cater to my family’s needs, and I could one day be evicted from our house for defaulting on rent.
I decided to change my career to an emcee to learn web design in my free time. Today I am a full-time web designer and CEO of Amazing Templates, a service that offers WordPress-like website templates. With an over 100% bump in salary, I now meet with prominent people in the technology world and was honoured to meet Sundar Pichai of Google at a design trends conference.
3) Speaking To The Pain Of Your Prospects
When connecting with prospects actively on LinkedIn, directly speak to them with your profile but also in a way that shows you are familiar with and understand their struggles. Below is an example.
Did you know some organisations waste a lot of their budget on marketing only to be frustrated by little to no results?
That’s where my team comes in.
My team helps growth-driven companies and entrepreneurs add their next profit per year predictably with no waste of money. As Sun Zou wrote, tactics before the strategy are the noise before defeat, and I live by that mantra.
Do you feel like you waste money on your digital marketing effort and cannot pinpoint precisely where it’s lost? If this rings a bell or sounds like you, we should connect and discuss.
Who am I?
I am the founder of DijiWise Agency, a digital marketing agency based out of New York City.
What does DijiWise Do?
We work with profit-oriented companies and entrepreneurs who want to use digital channels to generate leads, increase conversions, and consequently realise profits.
Results
Since 2008, my Team at DijiWise and I have helped many companies earn over $100 million in revenues online for our difference.
I am driving DijiWise towards $1B for our clients.
Summary
A LinkedIn summary is an effective way of marketing yourself or your company on LinkedIn. Since the LinkedIn search engine works just like other search engines, learning how to optimise the summary will increase potential recruiters or buyers’ chances of being found. Although choosing a good LinkedIn summary depends on the purpose and the person, a great profile combines some of the above features. Remember, optimising your LinkedIn summary is a critical part of LinkedIn SEO.