LinkedIn Gets Visual: How to Leverage Visual Profiles for Leads and Referrals

In another big move as a part of LinkedIn’s transition from résumé service to professional social network, the company recently announced the release of new visual profiles.

According to LinkedIn, profiles can now be illustrated with photos, videos, presentations, and other graphics, recognizing a shift in social media engagement from text to images. In addition, other users can comment, like, and share your professional portfolio across their networks. And creating a visual profile is as easy as clicking Edit on your existing profile and following the prompts for the Summary, Experience, and Education sections.

This is great news for users who are looking to network for job opportunities. But given LinkedIn’s huge potential for generating high-value leads, this update is also extremely useful for companies that wish to leverage the network for referrals.

Although company pages play a big role in providing social proof and awareness of your brand, it’s important to keep in mind that the quality, consistency, and relevancy of employee profiles also help drive traffic and sales.

For example, employees who post well-designed and highly sharable infographics on their professional profiles will not only increase their credentials as a designer, but also engage potential leads for their employer as people recognize the utility and relevancy of your business. Ultimately this will drive motivated leads to your website, resulting in sales and brand ambassadors.

Infographics are a particularly good example of how visual profiles can increase online engagement with your brand. A recent case study from Submitinme (SIM) found that infographics have 300 percent more visibility than display ads do. And they’re shared heavily in social profiles, emails, and so on, resulting in conversions on your website. This proves that visuals can be a huge factor in effective referral marketing strategies.

There are three main takeaways:

1. LinkedIn’s effectiveness at driving leads for B2B brands combined with the highly sharable nature of visual content can result in a huge boost in traffic and the number of potential brand ambassadors.

2. LinkedIn’s transition to a more social platform means that potential customers or brand ambassadors will view not only your company page, but also your employees’ profiles. This means that all employee profiles should be updated with relevant content, especially images, that will bring more traffic to your website. Employee profiles can have a significant impact on your brand’s image. Don’t neglect them.

3. Visual images can be used in combination with mentions, which means that a social media strategy on LinkedIn is not only possible, but also very effective for B2B brands in particular.

Some more big news from LinkedIn—how will your brand leverage visual profiles?