Who doesn’t need to be more visible? Who doesn’t want more professional credibility? Who wouldn’t benefit from more sales enquiries and a regular flow of opportunities to grow your client base, business and reputation? In business life we all need to:

• be easier to find, to connect with and do business with
• become known as the go-to person for what we are an expert on
• nail our niche, consistently stand out from the crowd and work on refining our differentiation to be current and relevant
• learn how to take control of our professional reputation & visibility
• become adept at personal PR and personal marketing
• be consistent with our visibility efforts
• cement our professional credibility in the eyes of others

The way people access information for professional services is more diverse than ever before.

You need to be easier to find across multiple mediums. You can’t wholly know where your future clients prefer to access their information. You need to aim for an on-going proactive visibility activity that you wholeheartedly engage with – and believe in.

You need to be congruent, accurate, engaging and REAL.

Here are 5 tips kick-start tips for increasing your professional visibility:

1. Be present within quality social media networks such as ecademy and linkedin. Invest regular pockets of your time for ‘housekeeping’ to make new connections, view your connections and their networks and then use these networks. It’s what they are there for. Learning the multi functions of these platforms would be time well spent.

2. Could you start your own Group within LinkedIn and invite people to join and participate? Be sure to establish the purpose & vision for your Group before you launch it.  Why should people be part of it? What might they gain or learn from being in it?  Try and identify a ‘want’ and be different with yours. The Group won’t be successful if you leave it to chance.  Create a great opportunity and integrate the growth of it into your overall proactive marketing activities.

3. Make sure your online profiles and bios are accurate with key search words and that they reflect what you actually DO and want to be known for. Include your website url and your social media platforms. Refresh your bios every quarter or more often as necessary. Keep a dilligent reminder system in your diary.

4. Upload a great headshot picture to your online profiles and use your real name on your twitter account. Create your bespoke twitter and facebook backgrounds to reflect your company branding and make sure your twitter bio is well written and add your website url to your profile page.

5. Once upon a time people were less keen to have coverage in online media for PR purposes. With the rampant growth and importance of social media activities, having a weblink that you can embed into a tweet makes it much easier and faster to communicate your professional visibility and current exposure! If you do your own PR (“practice with due caution unless you are an expert”), pitch articles or interviews to online media. Keep a master document of all weblinks that feature you on a rolling basis as these can be re-used in social media.

Sue Blake is the EBA’s PR Expert