4 Important elements of writing a winning LinkedIn summary and headline

A LinkedIn summary consists of 2000 characters in which you can talk about yourself, your professional experience, your work history and skills. It’s your marketing pitch to the hiring managers who’ll notice your summary and make an impression. You’ll need to make catchy and attention-grabbing. Meanwhile, a headline is the topmost section of the profile and comes right next to your name, when searched. It has a limit of 120 characters or less and should be very accurate and enticing. Let’s look at 4 important elements of writing a LinkedIn summary & headline.

1. Know your Audience

When hiring managers are looking for you, they key in some keywords which need to be found in your headline as well as the first three opening sentences of the summary. Therefore, you need to think deeply and analyze what kind of keywords do you want to add and portray to the public network. Imagine you’re having a conversation with a hiring manager, or a peer colleague. Isn’t there a knack which you’d use to describe and introduce yourself? Wouldn’t you market your skills and achievements? You have to do the same in writing, that’s all. Your summary and headline need to be as authentic and real as possible with a strong choice of words that makes the audience to delve deeper.

2. Include USP

Your headline cannot call out simply that you’re into digital marketing. Wouldn’t it be boring? Plus, it will not really communicate the knowledge you have on the particular field. You need to call out the fact that how you’re adding value to the firm you’re working with. Your USP and value proposition needs to shine through both your headline and your summary. Imagine writing this -- Digital Marketing: Consultation for transforming traditional business solutions. Isn’t this better to read, and interesting? One way to look for such USPs is to check for your company’s mission and vision statement. Another is, you can check reviews and ratings from people to find out what the company excels in.

3. Use Concise Language

You don’t need to show off your wordplay here. You need to write your headline and summary to ensure it resonates with the connections in your field. Meaning, if you’re a sales representative, a hiring manager looking for a sales manager role should be able to search you on LinkedIn, as well as your peers should be able to look for you. Make your summary and headline are jargon-free as it doesn’t make sense even if you have written a beautiful summary but full of technical terms, which many of them would not understand. This would result in the restriction of outsiders wanting to connect with you.

4. Power Words Usage

Now power words are very important and are used to denote the impact and significance of your skill or achievement. But please, do not boast about yourself on your LinkedIn summary. Addition of words like top-performing, expert, best etc. to your headline makes it look like you’re claiming to be all the above, and self-praising doesn’t really work well. Instead, include a good storytelling narrative as your LinkedIn summary as to how you achieved that near-to-impossible sales target, or how your leadership resulted in something fruitful, etc. That looks and reads impressive and will get you more authentic visits. Your headline can also carry your greatest achievement to date.