9 Reasons Why You Must Update Your LinkedIn Profile Today

William Arruda

Over the past decade, LinkedIn has become an essential personal branding tool. It has never been more important to build and maintain a stellar LinkedIn profile. The virtual professional network has morphed from an online resume and networking site to a comprehensive personal branding resource. Here are nine eye-opening reasons why you need to polish your LinkedIn profile right now!


1. It has millions of members. With over 225 million members, LinkedIn is the world’s largest professional network. Today, it’s assumed that you have a LinkedIn profile. If you don’t have one, can you be taken seriously as a career-minded executive? Brand-conscious leaders don’t turn their backs on two hundred million prospects.

2. It shows up at the top of Google searches. When someone googles you, your LinkedIn profile will likely show up in the first or second spot – that’s some powerful Google juice! This is important because, according to a Gravitate Online study of over 8 million clicks, more than 94% of users clicked on the first page results while fewer than 6% clicked to the second page. The first and second positions get 50% of all clicks.

3. People are researching you. All kinds of people use all kinds of ways to learn about you. LinkedIn gives you an opportunity to control what they discover about your strengths and, more important, about your brand. Who are these people? People you know. People who want to know you. People who matter: Your prospects, employees, manager, clients, competitors. They all use LinkedIn to learn about others. They search for you before meeting you for the first time, or after reading an article that you were featured in, or when deciding whether to respond to your email.

4. It’s packed with invaluable resources. LinkedIn helps you expand your success by offering crucial connections and expertise. Need to source staff? Want to solve problems that can’t be solved by the people in your company? Need to open doors with clients or partners? Need a service provider referral? Want to research what the competition is doing? Need to see who’s in a prospective client’s network? LinkedIn puts all of these assets at your fingertips.

Reasons 5-9 and the complete Forbes article