Jen Buzza: Okay. Hello, hello. Perfect. All right, Nicole, wonderful to have you here. I wanted your face here as I introduce you, because y’all, you’re in for a real treat. Nicole has got over 20 years of experience, which is wonderful, because as we look at this world in AI, I do think that the younger generations will have some other kind of advantage, but the advantage that we have, having 20 years experience, is an advantage that AI will never be able to duplicate. We are humans with marketing experience. I think it’s phenomenal. And Nicole works as a LinkedIn coach for agencies, and she’s the founder of Wunderstars. So super super happy to have you here, Prepathon, to help all of our amazing agencies learn by the example that you’re going to go through right now, learn how they can also increase their visibility for the right client. So Nicole, thank you for being here.

Nicole Osborne: Jen, thank you so much for the most adorable introduction. I’ve got the second half of the panel session you hosted earlier, and I love your energy. Thank you so much for being here with me as well. Lovely Prepathon community, it’s my third time here, and I’m really excited to be here. I’ve got access to the chat. Please tell me all, where are you dialing in from? I’ll make a start. I’m dialing in from the UK, and I would love to hear where everyone else is from.

Now, as Jen said, we are here today to look at some LinkedIn profiles. So whether you are an agency founder or a professional, I’m going to take a look at your profile, to see if you speak to the right audience, if it comes across what makes you different, if you really are showing yourself in your best light. Because let’s face it, LinkedIn is such a great platform for being noticed by the ideal clients for your agency, by being found by your audience, and also to get cited by AI. Now, I know AI is obviously really really important. Good news is, with LinkedIn, more and more of the links on AIs, whether it’s ChatGPT, Perplexity, or all the others, are from LinkedIn. Okay, without further ado, Jen, I’m going to start sharing my screen. I see your thumbs up, thank you so much. Fantastic. Tell me in the chat, where are you dialing in from? I want to see some locations here. And very selfishly, my son is 12, and he doesn’t think I do a very cool job, but if I can tell him I spoke to people from across the globe, he thinks I’m amazing.

Jen Buzza: Do you see them in there, Nicole?

Nicole Osborne: I see a lot of them. We’ve got Paris. Oh, we’ve got Stephanie is there, fantastic. Hello, Stephanie. Hello, Dominique. Apologies if I pronounced any names incorrectly, but I’m very excited to see you all. Okay, I am going to start sharing my screen now. Should only take me a second. We all know, when we are switching from different systems, there’s always a slight delay. Can I just see a quick thumbs up that you can now all see a LinkedIn profile on the screen? Yes, excellent, fantastic.

Now, we don’t want to look at my profile, but obviously, if you have any questions, or you want some LinkedIn tips for agency folks, feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn. So I am going to actually just pick one of the first profiles we had in the application form. So if you give me just a second, I would like to show us the fabulous classroom. Okay, so let’s just see who we’ve got. First of all, Garush, thank you so much for being brave enough to submit your profile. I know it’s always a little bit scary.

So let’s start from the top, guys. When I look at a LinkedIn profile, it is such a visual platform. So I want to look first of all at the picture of Garush. And I think it’s a lovely, lovely picture. Garush, I’m sure you asked me to be a little bit picky. So if you had to retake this picture, I would like for you to have a picture where you actually are looking directly into the camera, because it’s all about the eye contact. So looking directly into the camera, but plus points that you have a picture already uploaded. Because, guys, I’m sure you all agree, if there’s someone just with a blank space there, or no picture whatsoever, it just doesn’t create trust. Now, we are humans, we work with people, so have a really nice picture. Of course, you can also use an AI tool to enhance it a little bit, but please, whatever you do, make sure that it does actually look like you.

Okay, so Garush, the next thing I’m going to look at, you’ve got text here under your picture. So that is, passionate web developer, skilled in HTML5 and CSS. And let me just look at the information you kindly provided. So Garush is interested in working with SaaS companies, and mainly talking about web development. So in this first section here, where we have the text underneath the name, it’s really important that you use the kind of keywords your ideal clients, or people who would be looking to hire people like you, would be looking for. So if you work with SaaS companies, I would even include SaaS companies in there. So you want to mention, who do you work for, and what kind of outcomes you bring. I would suggest, and that’s very much a personal take, even though LinkedIn is obviously read by language models, it is also for humans. So if you can have a little bit of a personal talking point in there, if you have enough space in the characters, you can also do that as well.

So let’s look at the next section. So Garush, you can definitely add a little bit more here in your tagline. The next thing I’m looking down at is actually your experience section. So your experience section, one key point I would all like you to remember is, whenever LinkedIn gives you an opportunity to add a job experience, or to update your details, add as much detail as possible, because you always want to be up to date. So Garush, you’ve got your web developer, where you’re working, you’ve got the date. Let me just see a little bit more. Do you know, I think even though you only just started there in April this year, congratulations, you probably can already talk a little bit more about the internship. And when you are writing this, I would think about, what kind of next position are you looking for? When you’re an agency founder, I would look for, okay, what is it my clients struggle with, what are the key points I can make which will show that I have experience in the area where I need help with.

I would also, Garush, in your case here, recommend that you add some contact details. And this is a good learning point maybe for everyone. When you look at the contact information, actually only people who are connected with you first degree can see your entire contact information. So it’s worth it to add your contact information also in the about section, which I can’t see right now, but also in the experience section. So Garush, then the next thing I would look at. So, well done that you have your skills here. Always think about what kind of skills do you want to be found for? So I know you said earlier web development, so there probably is a LinkedIn skill you can add, which is web development. And you want to make sure that those are shown here in the skills section, but also in the experience section.

Garush, a final point on your profile. I also always recommend that you have recommendations. And I can see, just by looking at the bottom of Garush’s profile, he hasn’t had the chance yet to have his recommendations. Guys, recommendations, so you can either get them from your clients, or from peers or colleagues you’ve worked with in the past. It’s really easy, you just need to click on that person, and you can send them a request via LinkedIn. Before you send it live, you can even edit it and approve it. Why are recommendations important? Now, tell me in the chat, how many recommendations have you got on your profile from this year? I would love to see. Recommendations are so super important, because they’re trust signals. Actually, for your entire LinkedIn profile, you always want to think about, who am I writing this for, what do these people need to see from me, to trust my skills, to trust that I understand their challenges? And when you have recommendations from your peers or from previous clients, that obviously is a really really good trust signal. So Garush, just in summary, super well done for submitting this. Please add some recommendations, put some more information in your experience section, and if you have an opportunity, also use the about section.

I’m now going to go on to the next person. I see some thumbs up here in the chat. Tell me again, how many recommendations do you have from this year? I myself have about two or three, and maybe I should add one to that. So I’m going to go on to the next person. We have got a lovely lady called Liba. So I’m going to stop sharing this screen, and I’m going to bring her in one moment. Okay, so I can show you Liba. So, Liba, just checking what you can all see there. Yes, perfect, everyone can see Liba. Everyone meet lovely Liba. Thank you so much for submitting your profile for a review.

First of all, Liba, I just wanted to congratulate you on three things. You have a very attractive banner behind your photo. So everyone, the banner behind the photo is a really good marketing asset. So you want to say on there who you’re working with, what kind of transformation you can achieve, and what the next step is, what’s the next step you want them to take. So let’s say, for Liba, she shows here the different methods she specializes in, she shares here some of her values. Liba, I would say for the banner behind your photo, that you probably want to optimize it for mobile. And I would say there is too much information on there right now, because the majority of people on LinkedIn actually only access the platform via mobile. So I would reconsider the design to have less information on there, so that it’s visually more effective.

Liba, so the next thing to say, I really like that in your headline, we’ve got here, AI and machine learning, Python, generative AI, AI agents, computer science graduate, AI research. Liba, you packed it with keywords, which is fantastic. Because, everyone, you want to know, I’d say two or three keyword terms people will search for you on Google, you should include on LinkedIn, so that you’re really easily found. So Liba, super well done for that. I don’t know if you perhaps have, like, a personal hobby, maybe just a talking point you can add to that. Just to give you an example, on my profile, I think I mention it in a moment, but I really like to drink coffee. Now, you might say, hey Nicole, why do you mention that you drink coffee? Well, when people approach us via LinkedIn, we want to make it really easy for them to find something in common. So if you give it a quick talking point, even if it’s just maybe an emoji, or maybe you are a dad, or you like a specific kind of music, it’s just a really nice, natural talking point, because as you all know, LinkedIn is really all about opening conversations. Jen, absolutely, Jen loves coffee too. So yes, you could do a really lovely coffee emoji on your tagline.

So Liba, the next thing to say, very good, you have completed the about section. Everyone, this section I’m showing you now, it’s called the about section. Now, statistically speaking, only a small percentage of people actually go to the about section and the experience section, but it is really important that you add as much detail as possible, because you want the language learning model to have all the details about you. And also, when someone does go and take the trouble to look at them, that you give them details. The section which is particularly important is the section before the see more button. So we’ve got Liba here saying, I’m a computer science graduate, blah blah blah, I enjoy turning AI concepts into user projects for my AI-powered assistants. And when we click more, and only then can we see more. Now, psychologically, I actually recommend that what you do is, in the first two to three lines, the information before the see more button, you actually talk about the problem you solve, for either the people you want to work with, or the people who would be your potential clients. Because you want them immediately to think, oh my god, Liba really gets what we struggle with, she has solved that problem before. So rather than you going straight away into talking about yourself, actually feature the kind of company you want to work with, if you’re looking for that next job, the kind of department, what challenge they might have, or the kind of client, let’s say if it’s like a small business, their website might be out of date, or perhaps they are not being found on the AI search, and they’re losing leads. So whatever the key problem is why people hire you to solve it for them, this is what you want to mention in here.

Liba, on the plus side though, it is really good that you have all the keywords in there. I would recommend that you also add contact details here because, as I said earlier, I can only see your contact details if I’m a first-level connection. So good places to also add them are the experience section and the about section. It could just be an email address. Now, if Liba was an agency founder, we would probably want to say, add maybe a testimonial, a small testimonial in the section, or give again the website address, or at very least your email address. Now, moving on to the next section. Can you all see how Liba has already featured her top skills? Always make sure that these are up to date, and that they really reflect the current opportunities you’re looking for.

Okay, so let’s scroll further down. Experience section. Just like with Garush’s profile, really important to add a little bit more detail here. I think, especially Liba, you’ve been an ambassador. Do you lead meetings? Do you show people around? Do you represent the organization? Those are all transferable skills which are interesting and valuable to people in the workplace. Now, we know that we can use an AI tool to write this copy for the experience section. I know that’s really tempting. English isn’t my first language, so I always use AI tools with the editing. But you want to make sure that you also add some human interest in there. So Liba, if you maybe had, like, a particular moment, or particular feedback, or particular achievement you had in those different positions, put them in there, because I want to see more of that person.

All right, so again, you’ve got your education here, fantastic. By the way, just very briefly, not to confuse you, but there’s always different ways of creating a LinkedIn presence. Some people also use their contact details as an education entry. Because look, when we scroll up again, one of the first things people see about you is your photo, then the first 40 to 60 characters of your headline, but then also that first organization, or your place of education. And you can create the order exactly how you would like it. So if you wanted to have your contact details in there, perhaps your phone number, your email, you can use it as an education entry. So, very quickly going back down. Very good, licenses and certifications. For everyone who’s had their LinkedIn profile for a long long time, one key point for today, always very easy to go out of date with your licenses and your contact details. Please go in there and update them. And again, there is another opportunity to have a recommendation, right, Liba. So this concludes my feedback for you. I can’t wait for you to make those changes.

I am going to bring up someone actually from the chat. Let’s just see who we have. Oh, so Dominique. Let’s just see. Okay, so I’m going to have to very quickly, on this one, stop sharing, to then stop on Dominique’s file. Ah, here we go. One moment please, everyone. We have some drums now. Please follow the lovely Dominique. Dominique, it’s really exciting that you are actually here and you just submitted it. Let me have a look. Here we go. Yep, you’ve got it, Dominique, thank you so much. So everyone, the first thing we notice about Dominique, a really really lovely picture. Can you see the difference when someone is looking directly into the camera? So if you haven’t had that chance yet, have a picture which looks into the camera.

We also have a photo right behind the headshot. Now, Dominique, because you have so many amazing logos that I would imagine might be news publications you’ve been featured in, or clients you’ve worked on, I would consider actually that you feature them on a design banner image. Now, I know not everyone has the opportunity to pick a specialist designer and work on that, but platforms such as Canva have some free templates for LinkedIn banners which you could use to create with your image on, with those logos on. So one tip for everyone, if you’ve not had the chance yet to check that out on Canva, it’s a really good tool where you can find some useful templates.

Dominique, ooh, I see what you’ve done here. So Dominique, look, she is a visual branding strategist, and you’ve added this to your name. In your keywords, you’ve got here, visual branding strategist, entrepreneur, international trainer, strategist, dynamic speaker, founder CEO at Dynamic and Diverse. Really good headline. Dominique, it says what you do. If perhaps there’s one opportunity to show what impact you make, maybe you developed award-winning brands, anything where you can say the impact, it’s also an option to add to the headline. But Dominique, very good keywords. I’m personally, this is just a personal preference, not too sure if I would put in visual branding strategist in the name, because it might make it difficult for some people to actually find you. But it is obviously a completely different choice.

Now, what I want to emphasize on Dominique, and I don’t know if you can see this on this screen, let me just see if we can do the contact details. Yes, you’ve got them here. So look, this is the contact details. Now, I’m not connected with Dominique, so I can actually just see her website. But what I really like about it is that Dominique has updated her contact details to show all the different websites. And the other thing I wanted you to notice, and it’s just the smallest detail, but Dominique has also made the effort to actually customize her LinkedIn profile URL. If you haven’t done that yet, usually it’s your name and a long string of numbers. So go to your contact section and customize your URL, because it just looks so much better from a branding point of view.

Right, we’re going to move on to the next section on the lovely profile. We’ve got the about section. I would say, Dominique, it’s an opportunity here to turn this from third person to first person. So, I’m an international branding specialist, dynamic speaker, rather than the third person. I would say having a first person is more contemporary, but it’s a complete preference. I really like all the different places you’ve already been featured, particularly as a speaker, you can really see that you have really great, amazing credentials. So going back to what I said earlier, maybe start with the pain points, the challenges your audience face, whether that’s the people who you work for as a visual branding strategist, or the people who book you on their stages, I would lead with this. You could also consider to use some formatting in your about section, particularly if you’re a visual brand strategist, you might want to have some more line breaks in there, perhaps some emojis, to add that visual impact, but only if that’s suitable. But the one thing, Dominique, which will really help you to get more people to get in contact with you, is also just to add your contact details in here. So again, your website and your email address, and perhaps even your WhatsApp, if you would like people to get in touch via WhatsApp.

Dominique, the other thing you have done really really well, just scrolling down, is that you’ve added a services page section. So everyone, on a premium account and the free account, you can add a services page, and I would definitely recommend that you complete this as much as you can, with the key services you want to be found for, and maybe also some ratings from your clients if you get a chance. Now, Dominique, I’m very excited to see the next section. So the one thing we haven’t touched base on yet, LinkedIn is here, guys, to open conversations. So you want to think like a salesperson. What is the next step you want your audience to take, whether it’s the person you want to be employed by, or the person who might get you in to pitch for a project, or someone who hires you for their agency? In your featured section, this is exactly what Dominique has done. Look, the first one, success stories, she links out to her YouTube channel. So Dominique, I would imagine you have a really beautiful YouTube channel, so this is something really good for people to see. The next one is a link for a blog Dominique has written for GoDaddy. Now, we know trust signals is all about being an expert, being published in bigger publications. And again, we have a YouTube channel.

Now, Dominique, it might be that you have a specific speaker page on your website, or perhaps you have a freebie you give away, maybe it’s a visual branding checklist for your small business. If that’s the case, it’s really worth you considering having a landing page and linking that from here. And if you’re not quite sure what that looks like, have a look on my profile. On my profile you can book a call with me, you can download a freebie, and I think I also got a YouTube video in there. But super well done, Dominique, for having that featured section. I would just say, think about what’s next. You don’t want people just to go on YouTube, perhaps you want them to jump on a call with you, or fill out an inquiry form for your visual branding services. So it’s good linking that here.

Now, going further down, oh, Dominique, I want to see some more current LinkedIn posts from you, because I’m sure you have lots of valuable things to say. Your experience section is completed, you have some visual assets in there, which I think, particularly for what you do, is really really important. Whenever we can bring in results, our key skills, how people can get in touch, that’s really really important. You might also consider to have separate job entries. Under the main Dynamic Endeavors, have a job entry for global visual brand strategist, then one for international trainer, and then one for speaker. So, like a subheading, you can then add more details under that. It’s a really good thing to do if you have several positions and several keywords you would like to highlight. Perfect, you’ve got the founder here, creator, amazing, so this already looks very very good, fantastic. Education, licenses, if you even have something more recent. Oh, Dominique, and you have some recommendations, fantastic. I definitely think it’s worth getting some from this year as well. Now, I hope this was really really helpful. If you have a specific question, because I know you’re here, please feel free to mention it in the chat.

I want to go to, very very quickly, just one more person. I’m going to go on to Mukas. We have two minutes, guys, I’m sorry, this is slightly rushed, but I just want to make sure that maybe we get one more person some help today with their amazing LinkedIn profile, so this should come up in a minute. Right, so here we have Mukas. Mukas, very good, look guys, amazing picture, and Mukas is looking right into the screen, with a lovely lovely smile. His image behind his photo, he’s saying his name, he says what he’s specializing in, contact details as well. Mukas, the only thing I would consider, perhaps just making a little bit larger, to optimize it. Very very good headline here, you’re bringing in all the keywords you want to be mentioned for, and I love that you say, passionate about clean code and modern web design, it shows me that you care about something, and this is all we ever want, we want to see how are people thinking, what is it they’re passionate about, what makes them different from everyone else. You’ve got the about section here, fantastic, some emojis, some contact details, very very good, perhaps an email address in here. And then I’m just going to your experience section. We said earlier, it’s a really good opportunity here for you to add and pack it up with more details. So mention some projects you delivered. But on the plus side, you already have all the top skills here. So that’s really really good. We’ve got the education. Okay, so we’re good. Very very very good profile. For more opportunities, I would say also add your contact details, and what you delivered with the different projects.

So guys, just to wrap up, when you write and update your LinkedIn profile, nobody loves doing it. And you know what the good thing is? It’s not like we’re sending a book to print. Just do it step by step. The priority I want you to have in mind, why am I doing this? Who do I want to target? What do I need them to hear from me, so that they can trust me, and that they can discover I have the skills and the experience they’re looking for. And the final bit, don’t be afraid of showing some of your personality, because everyone is so bored with AI slop that we just scroll past. So perhaps if you have a hobby, if you’re particularly passionate about one of your portfolio pieces, do talk about it in your profile, because these are the little nuggets, the talking points we give, which make everything more memorable. So this concludes my session. I think, being German, I’m very well on time with the 30 minutes, and I am sure the team will join me. Hello Jen.

Jen Buzza: Yes! Oh my gosh, Nicole. You guys, so everybody out there, that was brilliant. I love it. I took a lot of notes. And I know now that you love coffee. And I’m like, I want to send her my favorite coffee. It just, you’re so right, it gives, like, that connection point of human-to-human connection. And I can hold on to that. It wasn’t general or broad. It’s like, I love coffee. And to be passionate about something, and now is the time to declare it, because people love people. Well done, thank you so much. That was so enjoyable and inspiring. I literally, y’all, was on LinkedIn going, like, ooh, I can change this, I want to change this, I want to change this. I was like, this is genius. So thank you for, in that short period of time, you delivered so much value. So we really appreciate that.

Nicole Osborne: Amazing. My pleasure. And thank you for all the audience interaction as well. I really loved all the questions. And if anyone gets stuck, you know where to find me on LinkedIn. I’m always happy to help. And I also have short videos on there. So, any tips, definitely. Jen and the Prepathon team, thank you so much for having me.

Jen Buzza: Yeah, wonderful, fantastic. And you all sit tight. We’re going to be wrapping up and announcing the winners in just a couple minutes. So super excited about that.