How PRowl Helped Me Step My Game Up

As a newbie to PRowl Public Relations, I felt as though I was ages behind my other colleagues in the realm of social media. The only social networking site in which I was involved with was the uber popular Facebook. I would obsessively check my page, make irrelevant status updates, post pictures people could care less about, and read my news feed twice over out of pure boredom. Once I became a staff member at PRowl, however, I found that almost everyone’s social media footprint was much larger than just the typical Facebook page. They had Twitters, LinkedIns, as well as personal blogs.

Their Twitter pages were full of creative hash tags and retweets of PR-related accounts. Their LinkedIn accounts were full of useful information and appeared to be completely professional for being mere college students. Their personal blogs were also a great asset in which they wrote creative posts that could potentially get them noticed in the world of PR.

So I decided I needed to step my social media game up. First, I made a Twitter. I tried my best to follow every PR-related Twitter account and to stay up to date on recent events. In an effort to broaden my social media horizon, I most recently signed up for a LinkedIn account. After I signed up however, I was completely lost! The first part of making a LinkedIn is to make a headline. I asked myself, what is a headline? How do I make mine stand out above the rest of PR students’ headlines that a potential employer could search? So I decided to trust my handy dandy search engine Google to help me learn more about LinkedIn.

The article, 4 Easy Tips for Writing a LinkedIn Headline that Sizzles, from Wilkes Business Solutions focuses on the following four pieces of advice about LinkedIn headlines:

Tip #1: Make your headline keyword rich.
LinkedIn is searchable, so you have to utilize keywords in order to be found. Decide what your personal brand statement is, choose some appropriate keywords, and make sure they end up in your headline.

Tip #2: Let visitors know who you are and how you can help them.
You want to include three components to convey this information to visitors. You want to let them know what you do, who you help, and how you help them. If you are struggling with this, you can use the formula provided here and tweak it from there as inspiration hits you. I am a (what you do) and I help (who you help) by (how you help them).

Tip #3: Capitalize the first letter of your important words to draw attention to them.
Using formatting conventions can help make your work catch a reader’s attention and, in turn, remember you. Because you can’t bold or underline the things you want to stand out in your LinkedIn Headline, you can use capitalization to help you achieve this same result.

Tip #4: Log into LinkedIn, click on edit profile, click on edit name, scroll down to headline, and rewrite your headline.
Take five minutes to log into your LinkedIn profile and change your headline. First impressions are always the most important, and you could be making a great first impression on LinkedIn visitors in a matter of minutes.

Are you new to LinkedIn? Or maybe just looking to add some “sizzle” to your established account? Let us know!

This guest blog was written by PRowl Public Relations staff member Kaitlyn Sutton.