By Jessica Mudditt

Globally, 4.9 billion people spread their time across an average of 6.6 social media networks – spending between two and three hours a day on these popular platforms. Depending on the platform and how often you visit it, it’s easy to fill in your bio when you first sign up, and simply leave it at that – sometimes for years.

Update Your Bio Day aims to address this. It’s a once-a-year prompt – on 10 August – to review your social media bios and update them.

Why you should update your LinkedIn bio

You may not be particularly concerned about an incomplete profile or out-of-date photo on Facebook or Pinterest, but updating your LinkedIn bio can be a valuable investment in your career.

LinkedIn has been the world’s go-to professional online network since it was founded more than 20 years ago. Acquired by Microsoft in 2016, LinkedIn has 310 million active monthly users globally – so there’s a high chance your colleagues, prospective employers and clients are using it.

“There’s more trust attached to LinkedIn than most other social media sites. It also has a powerful SEO [search engine optimisation] ranking so when someone googles you, it is one of the first things to come up,” says marketing specialist Simon Gould, who is a director at Orbit Marketing Australia.

“A business who is looking to hire you or work with you will do their due diligence by checking your LinkedIn profile, so it would be a missed opportunity not to keep it up to date.”

“A business who is looking to hire you or work with you will do their due diligence by checking your LinkedIn profile, so it would be a missed opportunity not to keep it up to date.”

Being meticulous about adding new roles and qualifications will also convey drive and enthusiasm. As Gould points out, if you are applying for a new role but haven’t bothered to keep your LinkedIn profile current, an employer may assume that your job hunt is half-hearted.

Fill in the blanks

List each role under the ‘experience’ section. Job titles and dates are important, as is describing your impact and achievements. Include links to any published works in the ‘featured’ section and under each job you’ve held, to build your authority.

Well-known acronyms within the accounting profession are fine and may even convey your expertise, however try to limit the jargon when describing your job responsibilities. Research suggests people find ordinary, concrete language easier to understand and more trustworthy than buzzwords and jargon.

When it comes to education and qualifications, some people prefer to only list courses that are relevant to their current area of work.

“There's a lot of debate about whether you want to muddy the waters by putting in irrelevant qualifications,” says Gould. “Could it signal to a potential employer that you may go off on a different path one day? My personal advice is to keep your profile information targeted.”

Under the privacy settings, ensure that your email address is not publicly displayed. Marketers often scrape the platform for emails to use in cold sales campaigns.

A picture speaks 1000 words

Having a headshot in your LinkedIn bio helps to establish trust and conveys your personality. Ensure that it accurately represents you and consider updating it annually or if you change your appearance. You might also want a new photo if you’re positioning yourself to apply for more senior jobs or different roles.

“Unless you’re blessed with the kind of genetics that we all dream about, you probably look different now than you did 10 years ago,” says Gould. “If somebody sees your profile pic and you look substantially different when they meet you in person, they might wonder – even subconsciously – ‘What else is this person not being 100% transparent about?’”

Try to strike an expression that is friendly, approachable and professional, and use a headshot taken by a professional photographer if possible.

Be active all year ’round

Update Your Bio Day is a handy reminder to review your social media presence each year, but posting original content and commenting on other LinkedIn posts more regularly can be beneficial in growing your professional network and demonstrating some of your expertise and skills.

“If you only look at your LinkedIn profile once a year, it’s probably not doing you a lot of service,” says Gould. “Add content to it on a regular basis. It shows that you are an engaged member of your industry.”

Gould has found that early morning posts on LinkedIn perform well in terms of engagement, while posting after 9pm is less effective than it is on other social media platforms.

“Test and measure it, though. Everybody’s tribe is a little bit different,” he says.