Social media is increasingly becoming a powerful tool for promoting individuals and businesses. When used correctly, they have the potential to reach and influence millions of people. LinkedIn was created entirely as a professional networking platform so all small businesses should be taking advantage of its marketing potential. Here are tips to improve your personal and business LinkedIn page.
Professional Image
Start with a great image. LinkedIn is a professional platform so keep your image that way. People like visuals on your profile and your photo is the most important one. Avoid the selfie or cropped image of you at a party. Opt for a professional head and shoulders shot or one that shows you in your work environment. For a business profile image, use the logo that is consistent with your website and all other branding. You can change the banner image on your company page so do so, but keep it consistent with the images, fonts and colours of your website. You may also wish to include your contact details on the banner image.
Here are examples of two great LinkedIn profile photos...
........and the not so good 
Update Your Information
Your contact information should be current, and profile content updated regularly with any new skills you have acquired. Add multimedia components to visually show off your work and to boost the visual appearance of your profile. You can upload more than one website address so as well as a link to your homepage, follow this tip:
In the ‘other’ feature, instead of listing the URL for each site, list teaser titles that are linked to the relevant pages. This will increase curiosity and clicks. For example, if you are an accountant and want to highlight why small businesses should work with you, title your website ‘Helping Kiwi Businesses’ and link them to a testimonial page.
Rewrite your Headline
Along with the photo, your headline is the first thing people will look at on your profile. LinkedIn defaults the headline to your current working title. You can list your role further down the page; the headline is your chance to stand out from every other user on the site so make it compelling and unique. For a company page, list your brand message.
Follow the Right People
LinkedIn allows you to follow thought leaders and key influences in your industry. When you follow people or groups, your newsfeed will be full of content relevant to your interests and industry news, allowing you to stay ahead of the competition - or at least up to date with.
Curate your groups
The number of groups you have joined on LinkedIn is not a reflection of your success in the industry. You may have completely bypassed this section when you signed up, or you may have joined them all. Filter through all the groups and choose three or four that are relevant to your industry so you can actively engage with them.
Provide Expert Content
Regularly publish content that shows your expertise in the market, accompanied with images to capture the reader’s attention. This could be in the form of blogs, shared relevant articles and industry thoughts.
Video Content is becoming more and more influential on social media in terms of engagement and audience reach. Include video in the form of Q&A and testimonials whenever possible.
Skills and Endorsements
This section is important for search purposes. List all the skills you hope will come up in a search and try to get indorsed for skills relevant to your sector. This will help to improve your LinkedIn search ranking. Avoid skills that most functioning adults are capable of such as Microsoft Word and PowerPoint.
For business pages, add your keywords in the specialties section to make the company page easier to find in search results.
Engage your team members
Encourage all your team members to have an active LinkedIn page and share company content. As well as being able to keep up with everyone in the office, you will be expanding your company content to your employee’s networks.