Linked In profiles are a  part of the mandatory requirements for completing the Marketing Management course which I coach at the Ateneo Graduate School of Business.

In a way, this is a higher level version of the traditional “Introduce yourself to your classmates and to the professor” activity at the start of every class. A student recently asked why there was no formal introduction by coach on the first day of the trimester- this is why.

More importantly, this exercise is an immediate and practical application of marketing in the real world to the most important brand in the world for you – the brand with your name on it. So why not use effective marketing principles that we learn in class to promote your personal brand and get higher returns for doing so? Why confine your brand to the classroom when you can get a google result at the top of the google page with your name on it, for free?  Why let other people determine what others see on the web about you when you can have relative control over it (as my marketing class will learn later in the course, this is your brand identity- what you say to the world vs. brand image- what the world thinks of you).

Want proof? Do a google search of my family name- “de ungria”, what do you see? Try other search engines- yahoo, bing, and what do you see? Then do a  google search for your “family name”  or even of your “whole name”, and what do you get? I rest my case, or in this example, I rest my link…

Here’s how to create an effective Linked In profile:

Note the following 6 key elements:

(To be able to post on this page, you have to apply as a member of the group. This is not automatic. I will have to approve your membership. This is necessary to protect the content of the group page.)

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