A rock-solid presence on LinkedIn offers great returns.

It helps you stand out while connecting with your prospects and target audience and impress them in the first encounter.

However, it takes more than just uploading a profile picture and filling up different sections on the profile. You need to make sure your profile is searchable and uses the right jargon (or keywords) that people in your industry are searching for.

And if you want to reach more people and level up your engagement, you have to incorporate content creation.

In this article, I provide you with examples of different LinkedIn profiles that are killing it on the platform to help you grow your influence and scale.

Let’s dig in!

What Makes A Good LinkedIn Profile?

You want your LinkedIn profile to make a good first impression? I understand. We will have a look at various examples as well as common pitfalls you want to avoid.

A good profile appearance is made out of different aspects:

• It shows your personality (Pitch)
• Adds credibility in you and your skills (Trust)
• Explains what you can achieve for others (Offer)
• Helps you get found (LinkedIn SEO)
• Get's people to take action - a.k.a., helps you do more business (Call-To-Action)
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Note: Learn how to optimize your LinkedIn Profile in my detailed guide!

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The Structure Of A Great Profile:

The Header

A great header pitches who you are and what you do.

Pedro did a great job making his header area stand out by adding a clear and descriptive headline and including a contrast-rich background image with a clear CTA. Additionally, he showcases his service right there, which makes things clear.

For the professional look of your profile, your photo plays an important role.

As a rule of thumb:

• Show your face
• Smile - Big smiles in profile images are associated with good social relationships
• Don't cut your image too close
• Use a simple background
• Get feedback: ask a colleague or use a free tool like Photofeeler

‍Example of A Great Headline

Tips To Craft The Perfect Headline

• Keep the headline short and simple—do not use long sentences that fill up the space.
• Use keywords people are searching for on LinkedIn—these keywords could be related to your job title or your skillset—for example, “Soft skill trainer.”
• Add a personal touch to the headline by mentioning a bit about your life in general—for example, cricket enthusiast.
• If you plan to post a lot of content, switch to the Creator Mode. That way, you'll be able to showcase your common topics with LinkedIn hashtags.

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The About Section:

You want people to learn more about you and what you offer? Here comes your chance! In Pedro's case, he's a LinkedIn storyteller. He points out the frequent pain points of his customers to pitch his services and increase his sales, which is, in this example,... well done!

Best practices:

• Tell your story
• Pitch the problem
• Show what you can do for others
• Add a Call-To-Action

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Featured Section:

The featured section allows you to build trust by showing references, posts, or features. Pedro used this area to show people highly relevant content concerning his offer.

He has a defined goal throughout his profile: bring people to his website and make a call.

Best practices:

• Include content that is relevant for the people which you would like to address
• Point to your lead magnets or landing pages

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The LinkedIn Activity Section

An active LinkedIn profile never fails to impress its visitors, especially when they actively create content and engage on the platform. The idea is to share your ideas, viewpoints, opinions, and journey with your professional network (a.k.a, your target audience).

A good LinkedIn content strategy is easily one of the fastest ways of building a strong network and community of prospects you can monetize.

When your profile visitors see your activity section and see how frequently you post and engage with others, they find you more credible and see you as someone who knows their industry too well.

Best Practices to Create Content on LinkedIn:

• Be clear about your target audience—what type of content they would benefit from and which pain points do your competitors solve for them?
• Observe what your competitors are doing—the content format they’re using, the people they’re engaging with, and so on.
• Create a posting and engaging schedule.
• Keep tracking your post and profile performance and pivot to get more engagement.

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Connections And Followers:

Having a wide network of people added to your connection list is always a good idea. It helps visitors gain trust and gives you credibility.

Suppose someone is visiting your profile for the first time. When they see you’ve got 3 mutual connections and 5k followers, they’ll surely take you as an active, credible profile. On the other hand, if you have merely 63 connections and followers and no mutual connections, they'll be less likely to engage with you, so remembere to:

• Connect with peers and colleagues within the industry
• Connect with industry leaders you admire
• Connect with potential employees and customers

And always include a personalized connection note to appear more credible.

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Experience, Skill, and Recommendations Section:

People visiting your profile are curious about who you are and what you do. The Experience and Skill Section is a great place to prove that you are highly skilled in their area of interest.

The most notable thing will be recommendations from people who are well known in the industry. Get some of these and they will add massive trust.

Best practices:

• Add all the previous and relevant job titles, explaining the key successes you've had in this role.
• Keep it up to date.
• List your skills and ask for endorsements.
• Build relationships with people who are meaningful in your industry. If you worked with them, give them a recommendation. Most of the time, they'll return the favor.

3 Types Of Profile Owners:

Example #1: The Fancy Storyteller

Pedro's example above fits also in the storyteller profile. This time I'll show you another good example. Michal's profile follows certain patterns:

- She uses trust-building elements on her profile

- She leverages storytelling formulas to keep you reading:

This approach is perfect for you if:

• You have something interesting to tell.
• You use your story as a marketing tool.
• You want to engage people.

Common pitfalls:

• Writing a story without a point. You want to avoid telling your story without getting clear about what you can do for others. This is key.

Best practices from this example:

• Use a hook to grab attention.
• Give noticeable recommendations to others.

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Example #2: The Reputable Specialist

This one is a great LinkedIn profile example. I include him in many of my articles - for a reason! The guy gets more impressions than anyone else.

When you search the word "SEO," you'll find Fili. He made himself stand out so much because he focused his entire profile on the "SEO" keyword.

(He even included that phrase in his last name).

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Perfect for you if:

• You explicit want to brand yourself as a specialist for one topic
• You want people to reference you by a specific title

‍Common Pitfalls:

• Over-optimizing for a single term may disqualify you from other niches if your wording gets too specific (first glance: "Ah this guy does only SEO, I'm searching for a marketing expert...")

Best practices from his example:

• Try to get endorsements by industry leaders or from employees from a company in your industry
• Include the keyword/keyphrase to get found in the search
• Show your experience
• Feature publications that mention you
• Create a banner with a hook question or statement

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Example #3: The Stunning Generalist

This example is pretty much the opposite of the example above. Robert doesn't specialize in one topic. Is this good or bad? Well, it depends!

I'm a generalist myself and would not consider it a bad thing. It's different. The challenge is to communicate your skills and educate people on what you can do for them. You need to be aware that focusing (communicating) many things makes you less relevant for specific intents.

For example, somebody searches for a copywriting expert. You appear next to a dedicated writing expert in the search but have listed 20 other services in your profile. Who would you choose?

So it all comes down to what you want to achieve with your profile.

For certain job roles, a generalist profile makes total sense. For example, a generalist profile is great if you want to be recruited for a Growth Leader role.

Perfect for you if:

• You have broad knowledge that you want to show off
• Are fine getting outperformed by dedicated specialists
• Want to attract job opportunities that require generalists (often leading positions)

Common Pitfalls:

• You may seem like you don't have a focus

Best practices from his example:

• Show your different skills in use (via the featured section and/or through your experiences and case studies)

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LinkedIn Profile Example For Students

In this example, I have picked Rohan because he did some things really well and others can be improved.

I want to show you both sides:

Why is it great?

His LinkedIn headline is on point. He did a great job using active voice to search for an internship, as well as including his skills in data science and business intelligence.

In the About section, he mentions his references and years of experience. That's awesome!

What did he do wrong?

• The contact info is missing (in the About section)
• Profile image could be better (contrast, smile ..)
• He doesn't have a profile banner image

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LinkedIn Profile Example For Marketing Professionals

Ryan's profile is a bold standout. I like the way he presents his personal brand on LinkedIn.

Here's why:

Why is this a great LinkedIn profile?

• Bold profile image
• Brightly-colored background image (contrast-rich)
• His company is mentioned several times throughout his profile

Points of criticism:

• Company name could be in the headline
• No clear Call-To-Action in the About section

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The Best LinkedIn Profiles That Are Slaying Their Content Game in 2023

1. The Value-Dropping Founder

Finding high-quality leads is hard, especially when you don’t know if a prospect is even interested in what you’re offering.

I love Andrew’s way of qualifying their leads—he creates a high-value resource that solves a burning pain point of his target customer and distributes it over LinkedIn.

As you can see, the resource in the example is highly targeted to solving a specific problem of the target audience—getting information about small businesses that aren’t active on socials.

This way, when a lead does download the resource, Andrew gets their contact details in exchange, which he can use to send more targeted sequences to nurture and convert them.

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2. The Carousel Expert

LinkedIn highly values visual content, especially carousel content that’s high-quality and perfectly designed.

For example, this carousel by Jessie is a perfect blend of storytelling and creativity as he walks his audience through his journey of achieving something in an engaging way.

Why This Works:

• The design is minimal and eye-catching.
• The creatives aren’t too wordy—just the perfect amount to engage.
• The post has social proof, which makes Jessie even more credible on the platform.
• The post subtly pitches the offer at the end without making the whole post salesy.

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3. The Meme Enthusiast

When LinkedIn rolled out the funny reaction last year, it gave everyone the flexibility to expand their horizons and come up with light-hearted content on the platform.

With this development, LinkedIn definitely wants to promote such off-topic content and emphasize that the platform is not all serious anymore—it encourages some humorous yet professional posts every now and then!

Take an example of this meme post that’s not completely off-topic and still relates to the industry the person is working in. These kinds of posts are more relatable and quickly get engagement.

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4. The Case-Study Connoisseur

Another type of content that rocks on LinkedIn is case studies. First, they are high on value—people from the target industry get to learn from others’ experiences. Secondly, they offer credibility—people start seeing you as the thought leader and expert in the industry.

Harry Dry posts such value bombs where he dissects the marketing strategies of popular brands, backing his case studies up with facts and statistics. His content is valuable to both marketers looking to upskill and founders looking for strategies to grow.

The Best Tool To Optimize Your Profile

I gave you a lot of practical examples of good LinkedIn profiles. Now it's your turn!

If you are a LinkedIn professional, looking to grow your influence, I have a ridiculously helpful tool for you:

The tool is called Inlytics.io. By studying your personal profile data, Inlytics helps you:

• Optimize your profile appearance
• Improve your content performance
• Dramatically increase your influence on LinkedIn

Give it a try - it's free to get started!

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Note: You can start building your LinkedIn Analytics Dashboard today, by signing up for the free account right here. Do it. You'll learn even more than just studying LinkedIn profile examples of other people.

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Turn Your LinkedIn Profile Into An Asset

Your LinkedIn profile is more than just your professional summary—it’s a bank of networks you can monetize at any given point, considering you have a well-polished profile.

Optimize your profile from head to toe, add relevant connections to your network, create strategic content, and engage with the folks you want to build relationships with.

7 Tips To Make Your Profile Stand Out

1. Use a great headshot and test it with Photofeeler.
2. Make sure to have a contrast-rich background image that fits your brand (with a CTA).
3. Make use out of 120 characters of your total headline length.
4. Enhance your profile with skills and ask for endorsements.
5. Give Recommendations to people you have worked with, they most likely will do the same.
6. Add your education and experience. Include bullet points.
7. Customize your LinkedIn Profile URL.

And while you’re at it, use Inlytics to track your profile performance and make data-driven decisions to optimize your strategy.

Level up your LinkedIn game with Inlytics!