10 Proven Tips to Elevate Your LinkedIn Profile and Stand-out in the Entertainment Industry
🌟Career Coaching: Navigate the Platform’s Maze and Watch Your World Expand.
Call them atomic habits, or just plain good practice. What we at Showbizing Strategies deliver to you is solid advice that can set off a chain reaction in your professional journey. Now, let’s be clear, this isn't the flashy stuff that makes headlines or fuels a rock 'n' roll fantasy. It's more like eating your greens and getting a good night's sleep.
When we talk about social media, think of LinkedIn as the steamed broccoli on your plate. It's not there to give you a quick rush of excitement, like Instagram or X. LinkedIn is the platform you turn to when you're planning for a sustained career in showbiz.
It may seem like a platform designed for the corporate world, but there are effective work-arounds. And never underestimate its value to producers and industry bigwigs who are always looking for crew, collaborators and colleagues. Your LinkedIn profile could lead to opportunities you never thought possible.
When someone Googles your name, your LinkedIn profile is likely to come up as one of the top links because of the platform’s extensive influence. Since you control the content that anyone sees after clicking that link, you have an amazing opportunity to present your professional life on your own terms. As someone responsible for hiring and contracting 50+ people in a normal year, I’ve learned a lot about profiles from looking at them. What follows are my top ten tips for getting your profile to stand out.
Let's begin at the top of your profile.
LinkedIn’s “Headline” appears with your name whenever you post or comment in the feed on the home page. This does not have to be—and often should not be—your current job title. Entertainment professionals are multi-taskers. Come up with something that embraces the totality of your professional skills – whether that’s “Entertainment Entrepreneur” or “Performer. Educator. Storyteller.” or “Producer. Problem Solver. Spreadsheet Maven.”
The banner behind your headshot is valuable real estate. Use it for a photo of you on a red carpet or a shot of you at work on set. Or promote your current film or podcast. Search for “free LinkedIn banner” and various services will come up that make it easy to create a beautiful graphic that fits perfectly within LinkedIn’s specs—I use Adobe Spark and hear Canva is great.
LinkedIn’s “About” section is a great place to show off your storytelling skills. Writing in the first person, give readers a sense of your professional journey—where have you been and where are you going? What drives you? Don’t be afraid to mention that you have a day job or side hustle. Few people in showbiz survive without one. Refer to your day job in a positive way—it adds to the skills you bring to the table and shouldn’t be presented as a source of bitterness. Please don’t plop your Playbill or IMDb bio into this section. “About” is not a list of credits…it’s telling someone why they should have a longer conversation with you.
Use LinkedIn’s “Featured” section to highlight things you want to stand out—an article about you in your hometown paper, your website, your latest blog post and your reel, for example.
LinkedIn’s “Experience” section isn’t the place for every single job or credit that you have. It may give the impression that you’re unable to sustain your focus if you have twenty experiences listed over the past ten years. Distill your experiences into three or four “buckets” such as “filmmaker”, “actor” and “educator”. Then use the “Description” section in each bucket to tell a story about your experience in each of those areas. Include some specifics about some of the projects you’ve worked on, some companies you’ve worked with and the skills you’ve accumulated in the process.
Make use of LinkedIn’s “Accomplishments” section. Here’s the place to include your union and industry affiliations, individual film and theater credits (under “projects”), awards, etc.
Take control of LinkedIn’s “Skills & Endorsements” section. Hone in on your primary skills here, and include only those that you want to be hired for. “Pin” your top three skills so that they show up first.
Ask a few colleagues to write a recommendation for you and offer to reciprocate.
If you spend your Saturday mornings mentoring youths in your community or you use your graphic design skills to promote a local theater, then list your activity in LinkedIn’s “Volunteer” section. If you need to know more writers and directors, note here that you give feedback on scripts and participate in developmental readings. We all donate our time in one way or another in this speculative business. Use this space to let people know how you’re willing to give back to the industry.
You have interests. Follow a few companies and business gurus. Show your network what you’re curious about.
Want your professional world to expand? Then go forth and create a compelling LinkedIn profile today.