#Advisors: Promote Yourself on LinkedIn Without Sounding Like Everyone Else

LinkedIn is the world’s largest professional network and is a powerful tool for Advisors to help grow their business. LinkedIn has evolved into one of the most powerful marketing platforms by providing Advisors a professional ground to network, enhance their current client relationships, as well as cultivate new prospects. If you aren’t leveraging some of the optimization features of LinkedIn, make sure you check out the 5 Quick Ways to Optimize Advisor’s LinkedIn Profiles , before moving on. Having a complete and optimized LinkedIn profile isn’t enough these days. There are over 300 million active people on this professional network, which means a ton of competition. You are working hard to ensure that you are putting your businesses’ best foot forward online but in doing so, make sure you aren’t blending in with the rest of the Financial Advisors on LinkedIn. How do you describe yourself on LinkedIn? Do you describe yourself as ”Driven”? Having ”Extensive Experience”? Strategic? Motivated? These are all great traits and you may truly be all of these things. Despite being characteristics that most people will look for in an Advisor, listing these things on your LinkedIn profile is certainly not helping you to stand out. This is because LinkedIn has analyzed its English profiles and released a list of the top 10 overused buzzwords of 2014. ‘’Motivated’’ is the most overused term in profiles while ‘’passionate’’ is the second most commonly used word. These findings are part of LinkedIn’s latest annual list of the most overused words and phrases on the professional network site. Below are the top 10 global buzzwords words in order of their overuse

Motivated

Passionate

Creative

Driven

Extensive experience

Responsible

Strategic

Track record

Organizational

Expert

Of course you are ‘’motivated’’ and ‘’responsible’’ – these are key descriptions that everyone feels they need to convey, but the problem is, the more they are used, the less impact they have. A great start to making your profile stand out is to remove these buzzwords from your profile. LinkedIn suggests that simply replacing these buzzwords with words from your thesaurus isn’t going to cut it. The most effective strategy, LinkedIn explains, is replacing these buzzwords with examples that illustrate how you’re motivated, and how you are strategic, and what your extensive experience involves. How has your motivation helped clients receive results? How has your passion helped clients to meet their goals? Instead of falling back on empty terminology, use concrete examples and results to highlight your accomplishments. Share your achievements in the context of your company, career, and professional growth, rather than making it sound like you think you are bragging.