Making It Richer: Adding Rich Media To Your LinkedIn Profile

LinkedIn has become one of the fastest-growing business-oriented social networks on the Internet.  With 225 million users, business professionals cannot afford to be out of the loop when it comes to being a part of the growing LinkedIn community.  However, until May, users who wanted to add visual media such as photos or videos and easy-to-follow links to their profiles had a great deal of difficulty with some formats.  Now, with the addition of rich media capabilities, it has become much easier to boost a firm or an individual with LinkedIn visibility.

How Popular is LinkedIn?

According to LinkedIn’s user statistics, every day 172,800 new users sign up and 1,370 companies create pages.  Every day, users also conduct 15.6 million searches and endorse 10 million times.  Furthermore, 42 percent of LinkedIn users update their profiles on a regular basis and at least 35 percent visit the site on a daily basis.

It is obvious that LinkedIn is growing in popularity, so it is very important for you to understand how to make the most of your profile by adding rich media.

Rich Media Rules for LinkedIn

Here are a few pointers for adding rich media under LinkedIn’s new rules:

  • You can now add photos, web page URLs and videos.
  • Rich media can be added to a profile in the summary or experience sections.
  • Click the upload button to upload the link or media file.
  • Rearrange rich media by dragging and dropping or by using the drop down menu to relocate from one section to another.
  • You can add as many rich media files or links as you want but only five will appear “above the fold.”
  • Each rich media title can contain up to 255 characters, and each description can contain up to 500.  User can add or edit descriptions or links using HTML.
  • You cannot change or add a photo with a link.  If one is already present, LinkedIn will show it.
  • LinkedIn typically uses screen shots for uploading text documents; there is no way to change or add a photo to these screen shots at present.

Businesses that want to utilize rich media in LinkedIn may decide to include links to blogs or articles that promote the business, photos that are appropriate or reviews from online sources.  Users can then comment on the rich media items, further increasing visibility and talk about your brand.

Rich media is the newest way to utilize the power of LinkedIn to promote your firm.  An SEO expert can help you harness the power of this great resource.