In times where social networks are a reflection of our personal brand, managing LinkedIn is a must for any professional who wants to remain relevant in their market.
LinkedIn provides a unique platform for clients to advertise themselves to potential therapists and establish more credibility due to its demographics and purpose. Surely you already have a LinkedIn profile: but if you learn to harness all the potential that this social network has to offer, you will begin to differentiate yourself from your competition and generate a high impact on the people with whom you want to connect.
In today’s blog, we’re sharing with you five tips that you should apply to optimize your LinkedIn profile as a therapist!
- A Detailed Personal Intro
The first impression is sometimes the only opportunity we have to either shine or go unnoticed. To make yourself stand out, set up your profile presentation correctly:
- When choosing a profile picture, make sure it is consistent with how you want to sell yourself professionally. Remember, it is not a passport photo; it is an image that should reflect your personal brand.
- Use keywords! Utilize the space in your headline to highlight keywords related to what you know how to do and the services you offer. Just like a search engine, LinkedIn pulls up profiles and companies that match search terms. So sneak those terms in!
- Celebrate your achievements! In the About You section of your profile, you can explain what you do, your passion, your brand, your accomplishments, and your professional aspirations. Attaching multimedia content to your profile will make your profile much more attractive. You can add videos or podcasts in which you appear, project links, and relevant articles or presentations of your work.
- Ensure that you have answered every question. If you have a therapy website or a Psychology Today profile, it should be listed on your LinkedIn (and all social media sites). This is one of the most common mistakes that we see and can be easily changed! Beyond this, make sure that you’ve provided all the requested details on your profile so that you can help others get to know you and your services much easier!
- Update your experience
Updating your jobs and detailing the experience gained will allow you to have more views on your profile:
- Share the challenges you overcame and the goals you reached. Also, go ahead and attach photos and videos that show your work in a more interactive way.
- Share content to gain relevance.
Dedication and consistency are keys to success in any social network. For LinkedIn, it is essential that you share valuable content and engage with others on the platform. Most therapists use LinkedIn to find jobs or hire others for their practice. Are you an ideal candidate or place to work? Make content that supports that idea!
- Share company values and fun ways that you’re supporting your community
- Update your status with important news and updates related to your employment or any open positions
- Do you have a thought about some market trends or something to add to a news article you recently read? Share it here!
- Join groups in your industry or sector and contribute knowledge to gain visibility. Groups can be one of the best ways to find professionals within the mental health field.
- Relate to your network and create connections
Creating connections with your network will help you be closer to your professional goals.
- Interact with your network, respond to their messages, share their content, and join collaborative initiatives such as providing tips based on your experience as a therapist.
- Check who has viewed your profile and interact with those people
- Write a recommendation for a co-worker and invite them to endorse skills for you
- And the final detail, believe in your abilities!
Being confident in your own knowledge will make your contacts, clients or employers see you as the best option and choose you as part of their projects:
- Update all your new learnings. Don't be afraid to post when you finish a course, seminar, or certification.
- Include in your profile your exceptional skills that differentiate you from other professionals and that are not easy to find in the market.
- Do not forget to include your volunteer work; this will help you connect emotionally with your contacts and show your soft skills.
Finally, a good practice recommended by LinkedIn experts is to add a CTA to your profile, whether to join your email list, view your portfolio, check out your blog, or visit your website.
We invite you to follow these recommendations so that you have a successful profile that will help you meet your professional goals. And don’t forget to subscribe to receive our Thoughts on That, a newsletter built to help your business learn the marketing tools you need to thrive!
