Branding on LinkedIn: A #Bufferchat Recap

This week on #bufferchat, we talked all about using LinkedIn as a platform for branding. The community shared advice for writing great profile summaries, growing as an influencer, building relationships, managing a LinkedIn company page, and much more!

Read on to discover all of the awesome knowledge and insights that were shared during the chat!

Catch our weekly Twitter chat, #bufferchat, at TWO times every Wednesday for valuable industry insights and to meet hundreds of other smart marketers and social media enthusiasts. Same topic, same place, just at different times – feel free to join in to whichever chat time works best for you!

For our community in Asia and Australia (or anyone else!): 4 pm AEDT (Sydney time)

For our community in North/South America, Europe and Africa (or others!): 9 am PT (San Francisco time)

This week’s stats:
1st Bufferchat: 33 participants; 279 tweets; reach of 991,088
2nd Bufferchat: 130 participants; 949 tweets; reach of 1,448,352

Q1: How do you write a great LinkedIn profile summary?

From the community:

• “Effective #LinkedIn profile summaries explain what you do and how you help companies/individuals. Keep them jargon-free.” @mr0ach
• “Not in 3rd person. Devani doesn’t like reading 3rd person bios. She thinks they’re impersonal.” @DevaniAnjali
• “Capture your profile visitor’s attention in the first 100 characters so they want to click “See More” to learn more.” @GeoffTBlosat

See all the great answers to question 1 here!

Q2: What are ways to stand out on your LinkedIn profile?

From the community:

• “Post a video describing who you are, what you do, & what you’re looking to accomplish on the network.” @SanabriaJav
• “The new profile banner can be a fun/creative way to show off your brand and personality.” @LuckaLee
• “Inject your personality into it. For my summary, I’ve put my 9 core values and a little bit of humor.” @KristeenOnline

See all the great answers to question 2 here!

Q3: What are strategies for becoming an influencer via LinkedIn?

From the community:

• “Be very, very active in groups. Connect with people. Help them. And write pulse.” @AyeshaAmbreen
• “Offer help and advice to others when you can. Curate great content.” @DrSturg
• “True across all platforms: What you put in is what you get out. Engage, participate, be honest, grow your network.” @SimTara
• “Stay active. You can’t be an influencer if you’re inactive. Share what you’re an expert in & engage w/ others.” @chelsey_puza
• “Blog. Publish LinkedIn articles about things you learn in your job that could help others in similar positions.” @Matt_Gerrish

See all the great answers to question 3 here!

Q4: Do you accept all requests to connect? If so, why? If not, how do you decide which ones to accept?

From the community:

• “If we’ve nothing in common, have never spoken, no shared connections, then no dice. You’d have access to my network of ppl.” @The_ChrisBryant
• “Yes. LinkedIn rule: Your connections might not add value to you, but they might know someone who will.” @KhulekaniMj
• “I have to have done business at some capacity with you. If I don’t know you, I can’t recommend your abilities!” @JMattMke

See all the great answers to question 4 here!

Q5: If you have/manage a LinkedIn company page, what are your main goals with the page?

From the community:

• “Goals typically include driving leads (new employees and clients), and becoming an industry thought-leader.”  @smoudlemort
• “To gain respect, trust and authority in that area of business, and more awareness.” @i_cirkovic
• “Our goals are pretty straightforward: connect with industry peers, establish thought-leadership and share expertise.” @AMBAcomms

See all the great answers to question 5 here!

Q6: What kind of content works well on LinkedIn Pulse?

From the community:

• “Shorter the better. Attention spans on LinkedIn are short ? – it’s a great place to reblog good/niche content.” @easttum
• “People usually care of stuff that solves some pain point. Start with a problem and tell how your product can solve it.” @easyamol
• “Look for the LinkedIn editorial calendar. they usually have a theme/topic for LinkedIn Pulse.” @ryan_bilello

See all the great answers to question 6 here!

Q7: Do you use any great LinkedIn “hacks” to make the platform work well for you?

From the community:

• “You can send up to 15 messages per month to other groups members free of charge – make sure you personalise the message.” @kilfrew
• “Yes! Tweak your profile weekly once. Add or delete few keywords! It works.” @chandru19902008
• “@Rapportive is a LinkedIn/gmail hack I can’t live without. Shows you everything about contacts in inbox + helps grow network.” @flaviacat03

See all the great answers to question 7 here!

Thank you so much to everyone who participated and helped each other in this chat!

Do you have any comments or answers to these questions? Leave your thoughts in the comments! We’d love to hear from you!

Image sources: UnSplash