Our LinkedIn Masterclass Series with Mark Jung, Co-Founder of Authority and top LinkedIn expert, was so popular that we ended up adding an extra session!

Now you know an event series is hitting when you get asked for an encore 👏👏👏

(Psst: If you want to catch up on the first three talks with Mark and learn about content matrices, writing hooks, and more, you can do that here!)

In the fourth webinar, Mark once again met with Kelly Cheng, Goldcast's Head of Marketing, to do some more live LinkedIn profile reviews and explain how folks can improve their existing profiles and posts.

The result? Advice we can all apply to our own LinkedIns!

Read on for these tips:

• 1. Maximize your content above the fold
• 2. Use the "Featured" section to show, not tell
• 3. Include data as part of your storytelling
• 4. Don't be afraid to smile!
• 5. Be the painkiller, not the vitamin 💊
• 6. Active voice is the way to go
• 7. Give your POV in the first lines of your posts
• 8. Wait to comment or include links
• 9. Only tag people you know will engage with your post
• 10. Take up space on the screen
• Browse the entire series for more LinkedIn tips

Want to watch the full session on-demand? We fully support that decision!

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When someone lands on your LinkedIn profile, can they tell from just a glance what you do? Hopefully, the answer is yes!

You should use your "above the fold" content (what people see before they have to scroll to see more) to sum up what you're known for.

Ask yourself: What's the one thing I want people to know that I can do? What do I specialize in? What have I accomplished? What's my enemy?

Then, use your banner image, title, headline, and the beginning of your "About" section to concisely and compellingly communicate what you're about. Yes, you want to grab people's attention, which cool graphics and splashy colors can help with—but you also want them to develop an understanding of your business.

Think of your above-the-fold content as a gripping movie trailer. You want to drop the hook that will keep people scrolling to learn more about who you are.

Many marketers find it challenging to showcase their work. It's easy to default to telling people what we do when we can't always show them.

However, LinkedIn offers a great opportunity to show off what you've done. Rather than just listing out your various accomplishments, can you pull something into your "Featured" section and showcase it there?

You can include websites, case studies, articles, images, documents, and more under your "Featured" section. Think of it like a mini-portfolio (even if you've got one on another site) that people can quickly scroll through when they visit your page.

Note: It's not a good idea to use past LinkedIn posts for your "Featured" section. You lose control over the thumbnail, and it's not always clear what they are. It's better to stick to other content, at least for now.

Be as specific as you can be when you're backing up what you do. For example, if you say that you're a "pro at growing web pages," what does that actually look like?

Provide the numbers: "Grew an eight-figure brand from 0-250K followers in under six months." That's going to hook people's attention much faster!

You have 2500 characters for your "About" section, and Mark uses every single one. When someone's interested and they want to see more, give them the ability to binge-consume and learn as much as they want!

4. Don't be afraid to smile!

Especially in the B2B world, we can feel like we have to be serious all the time, but a smiling headshot is more than okay—in fact, it can potentially boost your business!

It's not the same industry, of course, but a recent study found that Airbnb hosts who are smiling in their pics had more bookings. Smiling is thought to improve people's perception of how competent a person is, so no better place to try it out than your headshot.

Use phrasing that speaks to the pain points you help solve, not the benefits of working with you. That seems counterintuitive sometimes; it's natural to be proud of the positive results you achieve and want to show those off.

Here's what that looks like: If you work with companies to get 10X ROI on their events, instead of leading with that, think about the pain you're solving for your target audience that no one else can.

Is it that companies are busy and don't have time to create strategic event campaigns that get butts in seats—and, ultimately, conversions? Then say that.

Think of the emotional state of your audience. Where are they at mentally when they're looking for your product? Speaking to the challenges you're going to help them with will go further than leading with the positive results.

Mark encourages all of us to write in first person. This goes against what many of us were told to do by LinkedIn in the past, which was to write a third-person neutral bio.

However, today, LinkedIn has become much more of a personal branding platform, and first-person makes more sense. Introduce yourself in your own words, and aim to connect with people in a way that only you can.

​​If you're caught up with the series, you may remember that Mark's posts all begin with a hook and a re-hook. He recommends keeping the re-hooks short, under 126 characters, depending on how long your first hook is.

Your re-hook should be used to give your distinct POV and make people want to read the full post. If you're sharing an article you enjoyed recently, and you start out by saying, "I read this insightful piece the other day. I learned a lot," people aren't able to grasp your POV in that re-hook.

Think: What am I really saying about this? If the article made the point that organic social is dead, maybe you lead with that and ask, "Is organic social dead? Maybe!" as your hook and re-hook. That's a lot more interesting than the first example, right?

It's common now for people to comment with a CTA link instead of including it in the post content. We've all heard that doing the latter downranks your content, and no one wants that.

However, this too is now an anti-best practice! The algorithm has caught on to our tricks, so we'll have to maneuver around it once again.

Here's what to do:

1. Post.
2. Wait 15-20 minutes, allowing your post to get some engagement. (Be sure to interact back with people who are commenting!)
3. Edit your post, and include a shortened link. As long as you're ~15% or less of the total character count, you won't get penalized.

Mark uses the shortened link in the second line as a re-hook if he's established what it is in the first line. Alternatively, he posts the link at the bottom of the post with a CTA.

The more mentions you have in your post, the higher the chance your content will get downranked.

On the other hand, if you mention someone and they engage within 18 hours of your post, you'll get a 1.7% boost on your post.

This means you need to be strategic. No tagging busy execs who likely won't see your post in a timely manner (if ever), and no tagging big brands that won't respond. Mark recommends capping mentions at 4-5 per post, and be sure that you communicate with folks ahead of time to increase the chances they'll engage with your post during the 18-hour window.

You want to stop people scrolling, and you can't do that as easily if you're only taking up a third of the screen. If you don't size your images accordingly, you have to compete with other brands for valuable mobile real estate.

Instead, resize all of your content to 800x999 using Canva or another program. That way, you take up the entire vertical length on a mobile display.

We have to give a huge shout-out to Mark for sharing all of his expertise with us over the four sessions in this masterclass series. We learned so much that we're already putting to use (hello, shortened links and waiting 15 minutes to update our posts with a CTA!).

We highly encourage you to bookmark the series and return to it when you need inspo and motivation to post on LinkedIn, or when you're looking for a refresher on building your content matrix, writing powerful video hooks, and anything else we covered.

And if you want to watch the recorded, on-demand video featuring all of the LinkedIn profile reviews Mark did in the encore event, check it out below!

WATCH NOW