Keep your industry and location current - LinkedIn Tutorial

- Meet James. James just left the large tech company where he worked to go out on his own and start a small web design business. His new business specializes in E-commerce websites. He wants to find other LinkedIn members that are in his field and who may have started smaller companies like he did so he can network with and learn from them. James has the ability to search LinkedIn by industry keywords such as web design, E-commerce, graphic design, and small business. LinkedIn will pull up profiles that match James's keyword search, but this can only happen if those profiles have industry information added. James's scenario isn't uncommon. In fact, did you know that over 300,000 people search by industry each week on LinkedIn? Think adding your industry doesn't matter? Think again. Members with industry information receive up to nine times more profile views than those without. Okay, back to James. Adding his industry is simple. He'll click the pencil at the top of his profile to edit his intro. Then he'll scroll down until he sees industry. Currently, he has internet reflected as his industry. So he's going to update that to reflect his current industry of design. Make sure this section of your profile is updated to reflect the industry you're working in now. Adding or updating your industry will help those in your professional community find you. Now that James has found some LinkedIn members he can network with, he wants to narrow down their locations. Knowing where they're based will help him understand how he'll connect with them. Will it be in person over a coffee or virtually through a call? Enter the location section of his profile. Since James is editing his industry, it's easy to update his location while he's here since it's in the same section. James is currently living in Melbourne, Australia. However, he wants to update his location to where he'll be moving soon to Sydney. So he'll simply update the zip code. And then he'll be able to click on the drop-down in locations within this area, select Sydney, and bam, he's updated his current location. James will click save, and you'll see this reflected in the top part of his profile. Just know, even though James has updated his industry, it won't appear in the top part of his profile. That information is stored in the back end. So when people search by industry, they'll find him more easily. Little updates like this have a big impact. In fact, members with a location listed receive up to 19 times more profile views. More views means more potential opportunities to connect with the Jameses of the world. Not to mention, including the city where you're based makes you up to 23 times more likely to be found by others within your professional community. These can be members such as colleagues, alumni, managers, recruiters, and mentors to name a few. Simply adding or updating industry and location on your profile helps create new opportunities and connections across LinkedIn. What are you waiting for? Go in and add or update your location and industry now.