What Every Strategic Communicator Should Have on Their LinkedIn

 By: Jackie Sears

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LinkedIn is a online professional social media website that networks people with coworkers and other professionals. Launched in 2003, LinkedIn has stretched to over 330 million professionals. This social networking platform has become a primary way for employers to seek out potential employees. With this said, it is extremely important for strategic communicators to have top-notch profiles. In order to have a profile that stands out against competitors, here is a check list on what should be available on your profile:

Professional photo. This may sound like common sense but has been overlooked by many. According to LinkedIn, adding a photo to your profile can expand the views 14x than someone without. A crisp photo is a major factor in determining whether or not you are professional or not. Photos are critical in the way you are representing yourself to an employer. Now that you have selected a photo, it is important to keep in mind two things: not have another person in the image or have it look like a photo taken at a party. 

Fill out and complete your profile. As a communications professional, the copy you write in your LinkedIn profile can set you apart from any other candidate. Make sure to fill out a summary about your strengths in strategic communications and what type of job you are looking for while including keywords in order to be easily found by employers. To top off your profile, fill out and address your past experiences in the workplace as well as what all it entailed in precise detail. 

Add skills and endorse. Select the skills that best define you and begin to endorse people you know and coworkers in order to encourage others to endorse you for your strengths. According to LinkedIn, people who list their skills get 13x more profile viewers. The more views you receive, the more likely you are able to be contacted by a potential employer or further your network.

Publish your work and blogs. This is where your profile comes to life. By displaying your work, you are showing and not telling about your writing skills. This can easily make your profile pop and employers are able to get to know you as a writer. If you have works that are already published, it is a good idea share on LinkedIn. 

Join groups relevant to PR and Communications and you. Great, now that your LinkedIn is recognizable by employers, it is important to take advantage of the opportunities of communication LinkedIn brings to professionals. By joining a group that is related to PR in your city or wherever you may want to work, you are able to  reach out and start a conversation with like-minded professionals and network throughout the world in a way that you couldn't do before LinkedIn. 

LinkedIn offers many opportunities, it is up to you to take advantage of the free networking platform.

Works Cited:

LinkedIn. (2014, July 1). 10 Tips for the Perfect LinkedIn Profile. Retrieved from http://www.slideshare.net/linkedin/10-tips-for-the-perfect-linkedin-profile

Kumar, S. (2011, May 12). 10 Ways PR Professionals Can Leverage LinkedIn. Retrieved from http://www.edelmandigital.com/2011/05/12/10-ways-pr-professionals-can-leverage-linkedin/

Smith-Proulx, L. (n.d.). How to Double (or Triple) Your LinkedIn Visitor Traffic with Keywords. Retrieved from http://www.job-hunt.org/social-networking/LinkedIn-job-search/linkedin-keywords.shtml

 

What obligation do strategic communicators have in terms of goodwill toward the audience and are they fulfilling this obligation?

Strategic communicators are supposed to follow a goodwill objective in order to promote a positive manner with the said market. To properly define goodwill, it is important to consider the communities and where the strategic communicator does business with. Goodwill is defined as, “the amount of value that a company’s good reputation adds to its overall value”, according to Merriam-Webster. With that said, not all audiences will agree with what strategic communicators display. In order to achieve goodwill as a whole, the strategic communicators must build a form of trust with its audience. Without trust, the strategic communicators messages will not be effective and will fail. In some instances, strategic communicators lose trust from being a once transparent trustworthy organization, to having a crumbled destroyed reputation based off fabrication. In order to not fail, goodwill towards its audience should be obligated to display what is preached by the organization through its strategic communicators and within the organization itself.

The Page Principles define what goodwill is expected for strategic communicators. These are: tell the truth, prove with action, listen to the customer, manage for tomorrow, conduct PR as if the whole company depends on it, realize a company’s true character is expressed by its people and remain calm, patient and good-humored (The Page Principles). In a perfect world, strategic communicators would follow these principles to a “T”, but in reality they fall from it. If a firm or organization gets caught in a situation where information is leaked that may destroy its reputation, goodwill and transparency is sought because it is not fulfilling the goodwill obligation and is just making up for its reputation. For an example, take the recent Volkswagen scandal to heart. Volkswagen cheated emissions test, stating its cars were environmentally friendly when they were emitting nitrogen oxide pollutants up to 40 times of what the United States allows (Hotten, 2015). In order to prevent the destruction of the company’s reputation since it was not promoting goodwill to its customers and the environment, Volkswagen has stepped up and has admitted fault and is back on track of promoting trust and goodwill.

As a whole, I would say no, goodwill is not actively fulfilled through strategic communicators because it is used in a sense of marketing or making up for a scandal. To have strategic communicators not come off this way, it is important to have employees actively involved in the community and building long-term relationships with its audience (Kokemuller). The decisions that strategic communicators make will influence how the public sees them. Even if mistakes are made, giving back to the community with goodwill and being transparent will make all of the difference.

Works Cited

Hotten, R. (2015, December 10). Volkswagen: The scandal explained - BBC News. Retrieved from http://www.bbc.com/news/business-34324772

Kokemuller, N. (n.d.). Goals & Objectives in PR Campaigns. Retrieved from http://smallbusiness.chron.com/goals-objectives-pr-campaigns-21010.html

The Page Principles |Arthur W Page Society. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.awpagesociety.com/about/the-page-principles/