5 LinkedIn Profile Tips for Event Professionals

LinkedIn may be one of the oldest social media platforms, but with more than 875 million members across the world, it's still widely used for connecting with career-focused people. Even though in-person events are coming back, event professionals can still leverage LinkedIn to promote events, connect with event sponsors and vendors, and reach out to prospective attendees. But how do you make your profile stand out from the crowd? Here are five things event professionals can do to create a leading LinkedIn profile:

1. Customize your LinkedIn URL
2. Make the most out of your headline
3. Treat your summary like a sales pitch
4. Count your wins (in your experience/education sections)
5. Post often to stay relevant

1. Customize your LinkedIn URL

When you first create a profile, LinkedIn defaults your URL to a long string of numbers. That might make it easier for LinkedIn's database to track your profile, but no human is going to remember your profile URL that way. More often these days, people are including their LinkedIn profile URLs on their professional materials. So it's best to personalize yours to make it simple, custom, and memorable. Not only will it be easier on the eyes, it'll increase your credibility. There isn't a set standard for determining what makes a great profile URL, but here are a few tips:

• Keep it short. The fewer characters you use, the easier it'll be for people to remember.
• Avoid numbers and special characters unless they're relevant to your profile or your brand.
• Use hyphens between words in your URL. This helps users and search engines find your LinkedIn profile.

2. Make the most out of your headline.

LinkedIn gives you 120 characters for your headline, so use them wisely. Your headline is your first impression. It's the first thing people will notice when they look at your profile, and it could make the difference between being noticed and being overlooked.

One way to make your headline stand out is to slip your specialties and keywords specific to your industry into your headline. Instead of just saying "Event Planner," you can try something like, "Event Manager | Trade Show Planner | Corporate Event Marketer."

Another way to make the most of your headline is to include the name of your upcoming event or the names of your most popular events. As an event professional, this means you’ll have to update your headline regularly. The benefit to this is your profile will stay fresh, and it’ll give people another way to sign up for your next event.

3. Treat your summary like a sales pitch.

Your LinkedIn summary, marked “About” on your profile, is your chance to sell yourself. It’s your elevator pitch and your sales pitch all rolled into one. LinkedIn gives you 2,000 characters to tell people who you are, what you do, and why you’re the best at what you do. There are a lot of ways you could approach writing your summary. Here are a few ideas you could try:

• Tell the story of your professional career. Approach your summary like a narrative. Highlight your skills, talents, and accomplishments.
• Treat your summary like a case study on your expertise. Share how you helped your clients succeed and solved their problems.
•  Add your contact information, website, and any other ways people can contact you.

4. Count your wins in experience and education.

The experience and education parts of your LinkedIn profile are probably the most important. You may be tempted to treat the experience and education sections of your LinkedIn profile as a resume or CV. But if you just copy and paste bullet points from your resume, you'll miss the opportunity to keep the conversation going. 

For each job, don’t just list your duties and responsibilities. List your most significant accomplishments and successes. This is a great area to share your wins. Achievements like pulling off a successful event, winning an award, increasing event registrations, or increasing engagement on an event app are all highlights you should share.

5. Post often to stay relevant.

There's no point in having a stellar LinkedIn profile if nobody sees it. A great way for event professionals to be noticed on LinkedIn is by staying active on the platform. Influencer Marketing Hub suggests that you post at least twice per week on LinkedIn, but never more than once per day. 

• Comment in relevant discussion groups and on other people's posts.
• Post about something new you've learned in the events industry.
• Share updates for upcoming events you're involved in, or recaps of recent events you've completed.

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