What's Your Thing on LinkedIn?

When someone lands on your LinkedIn profile, can they immediately tell what your thing is? 🤷🏽 ♀️

These days, it doesn’t matter whether you're an intrapreneur, subject matter expert, freelancer, job seeker, or business leader -- LinkedIn is one of the first places people go to learn more about you.

A few years ago, really going all-in with your niche on LinkedIn was optional.

Many experts didn’t pay much attention to stand out on LinkedIn and just wanted to be sure that they actually had an updated profile on LinkedIn.

Making your niche crystal clear on LinkedIn is now the name of the game, and your long-term success depends on becoming known for that special something.

In this episode of Mondays with Mindi, we talk through the most important elements of your headline, how you can use LinkedIn to nail your niche, and what people are actually looking for when they hit your profile.

You Must Claim Your Niche on LinkedIn

A few years ago, really going all-in with your niche on LinkedIn was optional. Many experts didn’t pay much attention to standing out on LinkedIn, and just wanted to be sure that they actually had a profile on LinkedIn.

Not many people were talking about finding your niche on LinkedIn and really becoming known for that special something.

These days, it doesn’t matter whether you're an intrapreneur, subject matter expert, freelancer, job seeker, or business leader -- LinkedIn is one of the first places people go to learn more about you.

When someone lands on your profile, can they immediately tell what your thing is? Or understand what your niche is?

Remember the days when “building a personal brand” was all the rage?

I don’t know about you, but I remember reading the amazing Seth Godin’s classic, Purple Cow, from the early 2000s, followed up by Dorie Clark’s book, Stand Out, not too many years ago.

And I felt like Seth Godin and Dorie Clark are some of the pioneers who brought personal branding into the mainstream.

We used to craft a “personal brand” by making a list of all places where we needed to have a profile and then try to tie all of them together. Then, figuring out our niche became quite trendy for anyone in the digital entrepreneur space. 

When you think about finding your thing (or your niche) what immediately comes to mind for you?

Is it a personal website tailored to a specific audience?

Maybe your bio written to focus on the highlights of your career?

Your podcast or YouTube channel where you push out specific types of content?

Or maybe it’s an ideal customer avatar or ideal community?

Most of us have this very unclear perception of what our niche actually is or should be, especially when it comes to LinkedIn.

We often struggle to define our niche or describe it when people ask for our elevator pitch. 

It’s hard to sum up all the components of what you do for your customers or in your job, am I right?

So, a good number of experts will talk about ‘nailing your niche’ and the importance of doing so to grow your business or progress in your career.

We all nod our heads in agreement. We know it’s important.

But what is our niche actually? How do we figure out which of the things we do to focus on?

We’re talking about that special thing only you can offer your target audience based on your knowledge, experiences, and expertise.

That big thing you’re known for.

The reason people from all across LinkedIn look you up and send you a connection request, so they can glean from your wisdom.

If your answer ranged anywhere from “Kind of…”  to  “I wish!!”, let’s go deeper today. More on that in a minute.

Problem: Nobody Knows What You Do!

Many experts I know who are truly specialists in their field have a LOT of trouble identifying their niche and coming up with a good value proposition in their LinkedIn headline.

It’s not uncommon to have multiple target audiences, a lot of different things you do for clients, or a wide variety of skills and accomplishments. So what’s your niche?

They spend months working on their elevator pitch, attending free workshops, reading marketing books, following experts, working on their messaging, deliberating over their brand colors, perfecting their logo, and designing a personal website.

But when you land on their LinkedIn profile, it still feels completely generic, like there’s nothing special about them because they have not defined their niche FIRST, which sets them apart from competitors or peers.

One of the best exercises you can possibly do to nail your niche in under 10 minutes is to write your LinkedIn headline.

I know, it’s not as sexy as all these programs with flashy titles and gorgeous landing pages that promise you will figure out your thing by the end of twelve weeks of this bazillion module course jam-packed with dozens of handouts!

Ain’t nobody got time for that!

Every week I review at least a half dozen or more LinkedIn profiles to provide strategic guidance and feedback on what they can do to land their next opportunity, whether that’s to get their next job, book more clients, attract more inbound leads or build their personal brand.

One of the most common mistakes I see with their headline is going for cleverness over clarity. They write the most beautiful headline, but nobody knows what it means… especially their ideal customer!

The theory goes like this: come up with either a very clever mission statement or think of all the keywords you can mash together to show up in LinkedIn search.

I’ve even seen people stuff keywords into their first and last name area, which looks *really* desperate to any potential connection!

The problem is that those keywords only go so far. Most other experts in your industry are very likely doing the exact same thing, which means it’s not helping you to claim your niche.

You may be showing up somewhere in a long list of searched terms, but are you showing up at the top? Probably not, unless your keywords are not very popular, which defeats the purpose.

The problem still remains: nobody knows what you do!

Instead of trying to stuff ALL of the keywords in your headline or take the alternative approach with being a very clever colloquial writer, there’s something that I teach inside The LinkedIn Accelerator program where you will select a max of 2-3 keywords or phrases and then figure out how to weave them naturally into your headline area.

When someone reads your headline, it should roll off their tongue and make complete sense to them if they’re your target audience. They should know WHAT you do in language that they understand, and WHO you specialize in working with. 

Nobody specializes in working with everyone, so don’t go too broad.

If it feels like they’re reading a list of keywords, they’ll hop over to one of your competitors immediately if they even look at your profile at all.

Your job is to hook them with the headline, let them know what your thing is and pull them through the rest of your profile.

For those of you in the digital creator space who create sales pages, webinars or opt-ins -- you know exactly what I mean. You put a great promise at the top of your page with that CTA above the fold, with an intention to get them to scroll through your page… and opt in!

Think of your headline as that big, bold promise at the top of your LinkedIn profile. It should spell out your niche in very clear language.

When you get your attention in the headline, it will keep them reading!

Your LinkedIn Headline Tells Us Your Thing

Following up on that idea of the headline as telling us what your niche is at the top of your LinkedIn profile, what should go here? 

When someone lands on your profile for the first time, they should instantly know who you are, what you do, how you help people and what you actually deliver.

If any of these elements are unclear, you risk losing them. They are not going to waste their precious time scrolling through your profile to figure out your niche for you.

I don’t know about you, but I love a good, clear headline! 

Whether or not it resonates with me as a potential client or connection or follower is determined by the promise in that headline.

As an expert in your field, there is something VERY specific that you do. You may have a ton of competitors, but you have a DIFFERENT way of approaching the same problem. This is what you need to tease and get across in your headline.

If you look just like everyone else or copy someone else’s LinkedIn headline, you’re not going to generate the new opportunities you were hoping for on LinkedIn.

This promise needs to be accurate and also be crafted for your LinkedIn audience. 

I know a number of you have various offerings for different markets - sometimes having a B2B and a B2C side of your business - this headline should be geared towards your LinkedIn people.

Don’t just grab your Instagram bio and plop it onto LinkedIn because more likely than not, your audience here might be just a tad more professional or if they are the same people, they are in a different headspace on LinkedIn than Instagram.

Match your tone to the platform. Keep it professional on LinkedIn, while also teasing a bit more of your personality here. We’re not looking for a corporatized robot -- we still want to connect with a human, so not too stuffy.

But, remember, we need to know exactly what your thing is on LinkedIn!

Let’s Nail Your Niche in Your Headline

If you haven’t sat down to think deeply about your headline, it’s high time that you do so as an expert. 

Remember, I mentioned that spending 10 minutes putting together your headline will help you clarify your niche on LinkedIn.

Too many experts just “start talking” about concepts and ideas that seem to be all over the place for their audience on their profile. There’s not a common thread that ties them all together.

As an expert, your job is to make whatever your area of expertise is as simple, straightforward and streamlined as possible. 

That means people should be able to read JUST your LinkedIn headline without wondering what type of expert you are, what problems you solve, who your target market is, and how you can help them.

If there’s anything unclear about your headline and you make people think too hard about categorizing you, you’ve already lost them. It’s got to be crystal clear, even when you think it should be more complex or you want to be seen as this multi-passionate person.

As an expert on LinkedIn, you represent the ONE thing you want to be known for. What is your thing? What is your niche?

Until you develop irrefutable expertise in that ONE thing, you don’t add a bunch of other seemingly unrelated things to your headline. Got it?

Let’s talk about the four elements that every LinkedIn headline should have!

#1 - Who You Are

We start with your job title here. Make sure it’s understandable and not too creative, so it doesn’t confuse your audience.

What is your title? What do you want it to be? Are there certain keywords here that are critical for LinkedIn search? 

Some people are a bit more straightforward here, while others like to be a bit more creative to pique interest.

#2 - Whom You Help

This is usually a bit more straightforward because you should know who your target audience is. Be specific here, especially if you're getting ready to promote a new service, reach out for one-to-one conversations, or launch a book or product. Call them out here!

#3 - How You Help Them

You may need to think about this section a bit because "how you help" may change and evolve over time. I like to revisit mine every six months or so.

Think about what you're doing NOW or what you're planning/gearing up to do moving FORWARD. This should be current and not something you used to do. 

Choose powerful keywords - try not to look like everyone else, just say it differently if you need to, without losing clarity.

This may seem obvious, but as experts it’s easy to get sidetracked and call out things that are “trendy” in the industry, but if someone actually asked to SOLVE that problem for them, is this really what you do best? Don’t go for buzzwords if it’s not accurate!

The rest of your LinkedIn profile should reinforce that you solve THIS problem with a SPECIFIC methodology or approach, and ideally include examples or scenarios and results that you can point to that verify you’re the expert. Keep that in mind.

#4 - Results You Generate

If your “how you help them” section already includes the results you generate, you may not need to be as specific here. 

If and when it makes sense to call out the results you generate, do that here. For example, if you have an offer that gets people results in 30 days (and it’s not got that gimmicky feeling!) - you might want to mention it here.

Does this take time to nail your headline? Yes, I find that most people play with a few iterations before settling on one to test.

So there you have it!

Let’s recap what you need to get clear on to determine your messaging strategy:

1. Who you are

2. Whom you help

3. How you help them

4. Results you generate

To build on what we discussed today, I have a really fun exercise that will help you nail your niche, so you’ll be able to craft a clear, concise headline. 

My online business mentor, Amy Porterfield, recently shared a brilliant (and FREE!) guided exercise to help you nail down “your thing.”

When you know *exactly* how you give value to your audience, you’ll get MAJOR clarity around… 

⇒ The kind of content to create

⇒ How to market

⇒ What goes into your LinkedIn headline

⇒ Who you offer the *most* value to

So click here to grab Amy’s FREE guide to finding your thing… and then let the rest fall into place.

What additional questions do you have about figuring out what your thing is on LinkedIn? If you want to see some really great headlines - DM me or leave a comment below. I’m happy to share what this looks like in real life and match it to your industry. Leave your comments below or shoot me a private message. I’m happy to answer them!

I’ll see you next week on Mondays with Mindi - where we will have a really exciting discussion about connecting the dots on LinkedIn! In the meantime, feel free to add your questions or comments below.