With over 830 million users in about 200 countries worldwide, LinkedIn has gone beyond being a typical social media platform to being the seventh fastest-growing brand globally. This networking goldmine gives job seekers and other professionals direct access to top C-level staff, industry experts, and thought leaders. All of them are otherwise difficult to meet in person. Whether you are looking to land your dream job, build a personal brand, or search for customers, you need an excellent LinkedIn profile summary, (now called the About section) to get noticed by prospective employers or clients.
In this article, we will guide you through writing a great LinkedIn summary or About section to help you get seen by the right people. You probably can’t wait to learn how you can become a LinkedIn Rockstar to land more job interviews, connect with your clients, or leverage new opportunities.
But first, let’s explain what a LinkedIn summary is.
Want to make a great first impression on #LinkedIn?😎 Check out these #tips from @LinkedinExpert for #writing a killer #summary! #profilesummary Click To TweetWhat Is the LinkedIn About or Summary?
Many LinkedIn users often forget to include the LinkedIn summary, otherwise known as the LinkedIn About section or LinkedIn Bio, in their LinkedIn profile.
You can use this section to
- Provide an overview of your professional background and experience
- List your relevant skills
- Tell your unique story in a compelling way
The summary appears beneath your profile picture. The summary text box has a limit of about 2,600 characters. It gives you enough space to be creative and grab your profile visitors’ attention—whether hiring managers using LinkedIn recruiter, target audience, or potential employers.
The LinkedIn About allows you to promote yourself while keeping your story engaging, compelling, and authentic.
Why Is a LinkedIn Profile Summary Important?
Regardless of why you are on LinkedIn, your success lies in how you present yourself to people and their first impression of your LinkedIn profile.
A good summary serves as your elevator pitch. It allows you to:
- Establish your professional identity in your own words
- Express yourself
- Showcase your personality
- Explain career switches (if any)
- Set yourself apart from millions of others on the platform
LinkedIn About Is an Essential Part of Your Profile
Before detailing your academic and professional achievements, you must ensure that your LinkedIn profile summary is strong.
Completing other sections like the LinkedIn banner, profile photo, experiences, skills, educational background, and even your LinkedIn name pronunciation won’t be enough without a summary.
Thankfully, we will share many helpful LinkedIn profile tips to help you optimize your profile and increase the number of your professional opportunities.
Now, let’s discuss why LinkedIn summaries are essential for different professionals, whether they use LinkedIn premium or the freemium version.
A Good LinkedIn Summary for Business Owners
As a business owner, your summary helps showcase your unique selling proposition to potential clients. It is the perfect opportunity to let people know how your business can solve their problems better than others.
Having data to support your effective LinkedIn summary, such as how many people your business has helped, can build trust and generate inbound leads on the platform.
A well-written LinkedIn About can serve as a call to action, directing readers to your landing page, website, mailing list, or other marketing channels where they can learn more about your product or service.
LinkedIn Summary for Sales Professionals
LinkedIn is where sales professionals can establish themselves as authorities in their fields, build trustworthy relationships with their customers and drive sales tremendously.
LinkedIn Sales Navigator has about 84% of active salespeople. As a sales professional looking to improve your sales career, you need to be strategic with your entire LinkedIn summary to stand out from your sales counterparts.
Customers are tired of seeing sales pitches everywhere they turn and are usually reluctant to purchase from people who only want to sell to them.
If you work as a sales manager or sales professional, your LinkedIn summary is the perfect place to demonstrate the worth of your product to prospective customers. You can educate them on how it can solve their issues.
By doing this, you can present yourself as a reliable advisor and win the trust of potential customers. It is always easier to sell to people that believe in you and your expertise.
LinkedIn Summary for HR Professionals
People usually think of HR managers as standoffish people who do not care about their employees.
Your summary is the perfect place to correct this stereotype and display your warmth, to show you have your employees’ and employer’s interests at heart.
To show that you are a person first, before being an HR manager, you can be the voice of the people working in your team.
LinkedIn Summary for Recruiters
Beyond their skills, expertise, and accomplishments, recruiters can use their LinkedIn summaries to specify the companies they have recruited for or highlight the candidates they hope to hire for their clients.
It’s also possible to include a link to your company’s career page in your summary to redirect potential candidates and talents to your company’s website or landing page.
LinkedIn Summary for Marketers
Having the perfect summary as B2B, B2C, or digital marketer on LinkedIn helps you generate leads faster and direct them to your sales funnel, where you can convert them to clients. You can also include your website or a link to your landing page to redirect and convert leads.
An engaging LinkedIn summary sells your services to clients and companies more than a resume would. It allows you to highlight the pain points of your potential clients and show them how you can solve their problems.
Every successful marketer should have a good grasp of customer psychology. Knowing how your typical customer thinks gives you an advantage. You can anticipate the words they might search for and include them in your description.
An effective summary can help you improve your SEO strategy by integrating specific keywords that make you appear at the top of your customers’ search list.
Improve your #LinkedIn presence with a standout summary!📝 Get here 13 tips to write one that will get you noticed #linkedinmarketing @LinkedinExpert Click To TweetLinkedIn Summary for Customer Service Reps
Customer service reps can use their LinkedIn summary to showcase their ability to handle customers promptly and solve their problems.
It is a perfect place to highlight skills that will make your LinkedIn profile stand out from others. You can also include CRM tools and software you are familiar with and the certifications you have in the field to validate your expertise.
LinkedIn Summary for Customer Support Reps
As a customer support rep, your LinkedIn summary can help you show your passion for the job and field. You can compel your audience by adding a brief story about why you decided to be a support rep and how you ensure your customers have a seamless experience.
Little details can help distinguish you and impress hiring managers or prospective employers. It can also prompt customers to use the product or service of the company you’re currently working in.
Since we have outlined numerous ways in which all professionals can benefit from polishing their About section, let’s look at the consequences of ignoring this LinkedIn profile element.
What Happens if You Don’t Write a LinkedIn Summary?
Asides from your LinkedIn photo or headline, your LinkedIn summary is another essential part of your profile. Below are a few things that could happen when you skip your LinkedIn summary section.
- Leaving your LinkedIn summary blank will make others come up with whatever idea they have of you. It can harm your professional life.
- Without your LinkedIn summary, your entire profile will lack personality and appear like a regular CV with only dull information about your professional background and nothing more. You may miss out on the opportunity to tell people who you genuinely are, aside from your job titles and experiences.
- You miss the chance to include specific keywords to make your profile easy to find by recruiters, customers, and other professionals.
- Not including your own LinkedIn summary can give people a wrong first impression about you and might make you look unserious.
A good LinkedIn summary allows you to set the pace on how other LinkedIn users perceive you. Those 2600 characters can distinguish you positively from everyone else on the platform.
Let’s explain how you can edit your profile.
Where and How Can You Edit Your LinkedIn Profile Summary?
Editing your LinkedIn summary is straightforward and be done in minutes. You can do this directly from your LinkedIn profile on your smartphone or desktop.
Edit your LinkedIn profile summary with the steps below.
Go to your LinkedIn profile settings and edit your LinkedIn profile summary by following the steps below.
From your home feed, click on your LinkedIn profile picture. It will redirect you to your profile.
Scroll down to the “About” section, and tap on the pencil icon to edit.
Write your summary (up to 2600 characters) in the pop-up field.
After writing your LinkedIn summary, tap “Save.”
Now that you know how to edit your LinkedIn summary, let’s discuss some mistakes you could make when writing one.
7 Biggest Mistakes When Writing a LinkedIn Summary
One of many proven LinkedIn strategies to succeed on the platform is to have a solid professional profile, and you can only achieve that with the perfect LinkedIn summary.
Still, only some professionals know how to craft a great bio to lead them to the right opportunities.
Let’s mention some mistakes you should avoid when writing yours.
1. Hard-To-Read Sentences With Grammatical Errors and Typos
It doesn’t matter what language you speak. Having grammatical or typographical errors is a huge red flag. It is even worse when your sentences sound complicated.
Today, there is no reason for anyone to have a poorly written LinkedIn profile summary, thanks to writing assistants and editing tools at our disposal.
2. Lack of a Clear Objective
Your LinkedIn summary has to be concise and precise. It is not a place to highlight unrelated achievements or irrelevant personal details.
Yes, you came top in a cooking competition in high school. Still, no one cares about this information, especially when searching for a qualified sales or HR professional.
You don’t want users leaving your LinkedIn profile more confused than when they first came or stopping halfway because it’s too long, repetitive, or monotonous.
At a glance, a user should clearly understand your services, products, or capabilities from your summary to perform your desired action that leads to your goal.
If you decide to use up all 2600 characters, ensure your summary has a precise purpose. If you don’t have enough facts to make it long, you can tell your story in fewer words.
3. Disregarding Search Engine-Friendly Keywords
People often search for niche-specific keywords when hiring or looking for a service provider to solve their problems.
As a job seeker, business owner, or professional trying to leverage opportunities on LinkedIn, adding relevant keywords to your LinkedIn summary can improve your chances of appearing on search results.
It makes it easier for people to find you. It distinguishes you from the other members.
You need to include SEO keywords to conduct an effective LinkedIn profile optimization. If you don’t, you may lose out on the jobs you are qualified for.
4. Not Convincing Your Audience Enough
As mentioned earlier, your LinkedIn summary serves as your elevator pitch and requires intentionality because it can either bring you opportunities or make you lose them.
Most readers won’t go beyond your summary if you don’t convince them with your story, showcase your strengths or highlight your unique selling proposition.
Your readers won’t know how skilled you are or how helpful you can be if you don’t establish your value with your own words.
All information you include should grab your reader’s attention and compel them to send a connection request or a direct message.
5. Not Including a CTA
Most people leave LinkedIn users wondering what action to take after reading a LinkedIn profile summary; don’t be among them.
It’s always a good idea to include a Call-To-Action (CTA) at the end of your LinkedIn summary. Even if you’re not looking for job opportunities, you probably want to connect with like-minded people in your industry.
Adding a CTA can unconsciously prompt people to take action, even if it’s sending a connection request.
6. Exaggerating Your Accomplishments or Abilities
Because of the high competitive level of LinkedIn, it is typical for some people to exaggerate their skills, over-promise, or blatantly lie about their achievements to get opportunities.
It is imperative to protect your reputation on such a lucrative platform and avoid being a dishonest individual, as this will have the opposite effect of what you originally wanted to achieve.
While this might favor you initially, it always ends badly. It’s only a matter of time before your customers or employers discover you are less skilled than your claim or your product or service doesn’t work as advertised.
Despite your humble beginnings, be proud of what you have accomplished and invest in your future development. With time, you will reach your goals.
7. Plagiarism Issues
It is okay to be inspired by someone’s summary, but copying it completely is not okay. The essence of your LinkedIn summary is to showcase your uniqueness and authenticity. You can use the numerous summary tips available online to write your own if you are unsure how to do so. Using a free plagiarism checker tool can help ensure that your LinkedIn summary is original and free from any copied content.
Since we have covered the seven biggest mistakes that can ruin your LinkedIn summary, let’s share some valuable tips to help you create an eye-catching About section.
4 Formatting Ideas for LinkedIn Summary
We agree that LinkedIn is a professional social networking platform. Still, it doesn’t mean your profile summary can’t be aesthetically pleasing and easy to navigate.
No one wants to read through chunks of long paragraphs clustered together to know about a person.
Formatting your LinkedIn summary makes it easier for readers to get your point at a glance and read through long texts without realizing it. Use these formatting ideas to make your LinkedIn summary exciting and easy to read.
1. Keep Your Sentences and Paragraphs Short
You can format your LinkedIn summary using short, simple sentences and paragraphs to pass your point. It makes your bio concise and easy to read, especially on mobile devices.
Shorter sentences are easier to read and more likely to capture users’ attention. Shorter paragraphs make it easier for readers to scan your summary and find the information they’re looking for faster. Finally, shorter sections will retain the users’ interest.
2. Format Text With Bold, Italics and Underline Features
LinkedIn doesn’t have a text editing or formatting feature. Still, you can customize your LinkedIn headline, summary, posts, and even your name with formatted text.
You can achieve this with third-party apps or browser extensions that convert ordinary texts to bold, italics, or underlined Unicode texts.
Some users frown at using formatted text on a LinkedIn profile, mainly when used in LinkedIn names. When done right, these texts can give your LinkedIn summary a unique appearance that may appeal to other users.
To play safe, note that misusing these texts can make your LinkedIn summary appear unprofessional.
3. Use Bullet Points and Numbered Lists
Using bullet points can help you outline or highlight certain information and details that can be lost in paragraphs. They can make your summary appear organized and allow readers to grab information faster when scanning.
Use them to break long paragraphs and simplify complex sentences.
4. Use Emojis
Emojis can add a bit of personality and a pop of color to your LinkedIn summary. They can also perform as bullet points. For instance, you can use arrows or checkmarks to highlight your services, skills, or accomplishments.
Just like with formatted texts, use emojis moderately to avoid looking unprofessional.
A solid and memorable LinkedIn profile can be the key to unlocking opportunities and accelerating your career. With that in mind, here are 13 tips on how to write an effective and engaging LinkedIn summary.
Maximize the impact of your LinkedIn profile with a strong summary💪 @LinkedinExpert shares tips on how to write one #linkedinstrategy #profilesuccess Click To Tweet13 Tips for Writing a Good LinkedIn Summary
Having researched many summary structures from different niches, we compiled the following LinkedIn summary tips to help you optimize this section for better results. Let’s begin with our list.
1. Use the First Person Point of View
Avoid writing in the third person when creating your summary. Instead, use first-person pronouns like “I,” “my,” and “me.”
For example, “I am a result-driven sales manager with three years of experience in the health industry.” is better than writing “A result-driven sales manager with three years of experience in the health industry.”
Using the first-person point of view
- Adds personality to your summary
- It makes it less generic
- Sounds more confident
- It makes you more authentic
Doing this lets you connect with other users personally and give them a sense of who you are as a professional.
2. Use a Professional Tone
Unlike most other social platforms, LinkedIn is a professional networking platform.
Maintaining a professional tone is crucial when writing your LinkedIn summary. It means avoiding anything that users can perceive as too casual or informal.
At the same time, you don’t want to come across as stiff or robotic. You also don’t have to sound too rigid and overly serious. The key is to balance being friendly and personable while still keeping things professional. Avoid inappropriate slang and phrases.
3. Use Active Voice and Avoid Passive
When writing your LinkedIn summary, use active voice rather than passive voice. The active voice sounds more confident and assertive, while the passive voice can make you sound weaker and less sure of yourself.
Active voice will make your writing more direct and help you communicate your message more effectively.
Passive constructions can make your writing sound stuffy and difficult to understand, so it’s best to avoid them where possible.
4. Keep It at Least 600 Characters
The LinkedIn summary section includes around 2600 characters to write your pitch. While some try to use all characters, others only use a few words or one or two sentences.
It’s okay if you are not a fan of long texts, but make sure your summary is at least 600 characters long.
This way, you can include relevant skills, accomplishments, and data to back your claims and avoid overwhelming users while reading your LinkedIn summary.
Remember, your summary allows you to tell your story and sell yourself, so maximize it. If your Bio is too short, it may not be enough to let people fully understand the depth of your expertise.
The About section is precious real estate – so consider using as many of the 2600 characters as you need to let your audience know you understand them and their challenges and that you can be a helpful resource for them.
5. Use Relevant Keywords
When writing a LinkedIn summary, using relevant keywords is essential.
By including keywords specific to your industry, you can ensure that other professionals interested in connecting with you can find you.
To choose the right keywords, consider the terms someone might use to search for your skills and experience. You can also look at job postings in your field to see what language employers use.
Once you have a list of potential keywords, try to work them into your summary in a way that sounds natural and makes sense in the context of your career story.
6. Tell a Story to Hook Your Audience
Think about the most exciting stories you have to tell about your professional life.
By sharing your story, you can give prospective clients or connections a better sense of who you are, what you’re capable of, and what you’re all about.
Your story doesn’t have to be long or overly complicated. A few sentences that capture the essence of who you are and what you do can make all the difference.
So take some time to craft a great story for your LinkedIn summary, and watch how fast your audience grows.
7. Write in a Clear, Concise, and Easy-To-Read Style
Using complex words and sentences in your summary doesn’t make you bright. No one wants to read complex sentences they will have difficulty understanding.
True smartness lies in how well you can make the most technical detail look easy for a non-technical person to understand. So keep it concise, write in clear sentences and avoid long paragraphs.
8. Highlight What Makes You Unique
Many people have the same skills, offer the same services, and have accomplished as much as you.
Customers probably go through tons of similar profiles daily, so you must highlight the specific traits, skills, or offerings that set you apart.
For example, there are many customer service reps out there. Still, your uniqueness could be that you have worked with several companies, used specific tools, or can speak ten languages.
Alternatively, your SaaS company provides a money-back guarantee or more features and integrations to distinguish itself from its rivals.
Highlighting details like these in your LinkedIn summary might make people choose you instead of competitors.
9. Write About Your Interests
Suppose you’re looking for ways to make your LinkedIn profile more engaging. One suggestion is to include information about your interests in your summary.
It helps you give users a sense of who you are as a person and can also be a great conversation starter.
Ideas for Your About Section
Some ideas for what to include in your summary might be
- Your hobbies and interests
- Things you’re passionate about
- Volunteer work or causes you care about
- Unique experiences you have
- Any relevant coursework or training
By sharing information about your interests, you’re giving LinkedIn members a glimpse into your personality and helping them to see you as a well-rounded individual.
It can be an excellent way to connect with potential clients or partners and stand out from the crowd.
10. Focus on Future Plans
By focusing on your plans in your LinkedIn summary, you can show users that you’re driven and ready to take your career to the next level.
Trying to be too vague or overly ambitious will only turn people off, so here are some things to keep in mind when describing your plans
- Be specific about what you want to achieve
- Explain how your plans will benefit your career
- Show that you’re committed to your goals
- Update your plan as you go
What do you want users to do after reading? Do you want them to reach out to you for more information? Do you want them to follow your progress? Whatever it is, include a call to action so readers can take the next step.
11. Use Specific Numbers and Data to Support Your Claims
If you have accurate data to validate your claims, you can include them to boost your credibility.
For example, if you are a digital marketer who has helped businesses increase their sales, it would be best to say:
“In the past three months, I have helped 20 businesses boost their online presence by 60% and increase sales by 45%“.
Rather than saying, “ I help business boost their online presence and increase sales.“
It makes you sound like an expert in your field and validates your abilities.
12. Avoid Clichés, Empty Phrases, and Generalities
You don’t want people to have a déjà vu while reading your summary because they have probably read similar words several times on LinkedIn.
Avoid using generic words, empty phrases, and cliches, as they can make your summary less effective and make you sound like everyone else.
13. Seek Feedback From Others Before You Hit “Publish”
Getting feedback from others before you hit “Publish” on anything, especially something as crucial as your LinkedIn summary, is always a good idea.
Your summary is one of the first things people will see when they visit your profile, so you want to ensure it’s as strong as possible.
Asking for feedback from friends, family, or colleagues is a great way to get constructive criticism. You can also post your summary in relevant LinkedIn groups and see what people think.
Make sure you’re open to constructive criticism and willing to make changes based on what others say.
Since we covered all crucial details and shared 13 tips from the pros on how to write your LinkedIn summary, it’s time to share the best examples to boost your inspiration.
3 Best LinkedIn Summary Examples to Get Ideas Today
With many LinkedIn summary examples from top industry experts, writing an excellent bio today is more accessible than before. Let’s look at three excellent summaries from the pros.
LinkedIn Summary of Mario M. Martinez Jr.
Mario M. Martinez Jr. is the CEO of Vengreso, a company that created Modern sales mastery for individuals. He is also the creator of FlyMSG, a digital writing assistant and text expander that saves professionals 20 hours per month by automating their writing tasks.
He has a detailed profile, and his LinkedIn summary starts with a brief history before highlighting his goals, accomplishments, product, and value. Despite having an extended profile summary, he uses clear sentences and structured paragraphs to make it easy to read.
We love how he uses a few emojis and bullet points to get his points across. You’ll agree that his LinkedIn summary hints at his fun personality from his writing style.
See the full LinkedIn summary below.
LinkedIn Summary of Shari Levitin
Shari Levitin is an author, sales trainer, business growth expert, and the current CEO of Levitin Group. Her company helps sales and business leaders deliver training programs that yield results.
Using the storytelling approach, she keeps her readers hooked to her LinkedIn summary, despite its length, leaving you wanting to know more about her.
She highlights her strengths, achievements, and unique selling proposition to readers with bullet points, emojis, and clear sentences.
Despite not having a regular CTA, we love how she ends her LinkedIn summary with a question to make it more engaging.
You can find the complete summary below.
Shari’s About section can serve as a LinkedIn summary template for entrepreneurs, sales experts, small business founders, and CEOs.
LinkedIn summary of Juan P. Diaz
Juan Diaz is a Relationship Manager and Customer Engagement Specialist. He helps knowledge workers boost their productivity and save time with the FlyMSG writing assistant and text expander.
Juan’s LinkedIn summary mainly focuses on how businesses, companies, and professionals can benefit from his company’s product, FlyMSG. Beyond compelling his readers to save one hour per day with FlyMSG, he also provides information about users and companies using this product.
He also used a few emojis, bullet points, straightforward sentences, and brief paragraphs to convince his readers to start using FlyMSG.
We love how he closes with fun facts about himself and a clear CTA. Read the full LinkedIn summary below.
When writing a LinkedIn summary, it can be easy to get bogged down in the details. But, with some creativity, you can set yourself apart from the rest and boost your career. Remember our tips and examples when you start preparing your About section.
Make your #LinkedIn profile stand out with a compelling #summary✍️ @vengreso has some great tips #linkedinprofile #profileskills Click To TweetLinkedIn profile summary: The key takeaway
The LinkedIn summary is essential for your career because it helps you stand out from the crowd. By introducing yourself through a concise and to-the-point summary of your skills, experience, and accomplishments, you can attract the attention of potential clients, customers, partners or people doing LinkedIn prospecting.
A well-written summary can also help you build your network of contacts, which can be invaluable when looking for new opportunities. In addition, it can serve as a great marketing tool for you. Make sure you check out our LinkedIn training program for more tips ands tricks.
So, if you’re looking to take your career to the next level, assure your LinkedIn summary is up to par. With a little effort, you can be sure to achieve success.
