Category: LinkedIn

Claiming Your LinkedIn Profile URL

11/17/2021

Make it easier for your colleagues, prospective employers and clients to find you with a unique and consistent web address (URL) on both LinkedIn personal profiles and Company Pages.

Personal Profile URLs
Claiming your custom personal URL is simple and adds credibility and professionalism to your profile. You can start by simply clicking here and clicking the “edit your custom URL section” in the top right hand corner.
Alternatively,

Click the “Me” icon on your LinkedIn homepage.
Click “View Profile”
Click “Edit Public Profile and URL” on the upper right hand side
Under “Edit Your Custom URL,” click the edit icon next to your public profile URL.

Either way, the end result will be something like www.linkedin.com/in/yourname.

A few pointers:

Your URL can contain 5-30 letters or numbers, but no spaces, symbols or special characters (or mine would have a dog and cat emoji).
Best practice: stick with your name or professional brand, since it’s likely you’ll be sharing this URL with prospective clients, employers and colleagues
You can change it- but only five times in six months. Changing it may make it harder for people to find you in the future, especially if they’ve saved a business card or other communication with your old URL.

Company Page URLs
Custom URLs allow clients and employees to find your page more easily while adding to the strength and awareness of your brand. If you have a company page for your veterinary practice, you can easily claim a custom URL. Instead of the default jumble of letters and numbers, your custom LinkedIn URL will look like www.linkedin.com/company/thesocialdvm.

To claim or edit your Linkedin Page URL:

Sign in to LinkedIn and navigate to your company Page
Click on “Admin Tools” in the top right-hand corner
Select “Public URL”
Select your username and click “save changes.”

A few pointers:

URL addresses are subject to availability, so if yours is already taken you may have to resort to your second choice.
You can’t change your URL more than once in a 30 day period, so be sure you’re happy with your choice (and type carefully!)
The URL and Page Name (e.g. Your Veterinary Clinic or The Social DVM) must be similar. For instance, I couldn’t change the URL of The Social DVM to linkedin.com/company/crazycatlady (although it would be cool if I could).

Having trouble? Learn more directly from Linkedin here (personal profile) and here (company page), or shoot us an email! Want to know more about LinkedIn and how to make it work for you? Check out our on-demand course for all things LinkedIn!
-The Team at The Social DVM

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10 Ways to Improve Your LinkedIn Profile

10/12/2021

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10 Ways to Improve Your LinkedIn Profile

LinkedIn is a social media platform focused on professional networking and career development. It offers personal profiles as well as company pages for businesses. Over 167 million Americans utilize the platform, with more than half of them college-educated.

While Instagram, TikTok, Facebook and Snapchat may be full of veterinary professionals, LinkedIn is the platform that routinely gets overlooked and is steadily gaining traction in the veterinary industry. It offers both individuals and practices the opportunity to network, share information and ideas, earn reviews and accolades, and find the next great job (or great hire).

Follow the tips below to get your LinkedIn profile noticed, and you’ll be making new connections in no time!

Update your picture and bio. Validate your profile by uploading a current headshot, and provide a glimpse of your background by including a short bio in the “About” section that summarizes your professional experience and/or passion. Here’s a look at mine:

Make your headline more than just your title. Your headline, located directly under your name in your LinkedIn profile, is a short, descriptive tagline that tells your connections who you are. Rather than using a the default (your current job title), be creative and give your connections a reason to delve deeper into your profile. Instead of simply “Veterinarian,” I added a little personality to mine as well as my company name.

Make sure your employer is listed (and linked to the proper page). Clearly identify your current employer in the introduction section of your profile and ensure its LinkedIn business profile is easily accessible. By doing so, you will give your connections another opportunity to learn more about your business and what it has to offer.

Make your profile as robust as possible. Completing all sections of your LinkedIn profile will allow you to get noticed and make it easy for prospective employers, colleagues, and connections to identify the expertise you have to offer, plus help them identify common ground so striking up a real-life conversation is even easier.
Ask for a recommendation. Colleagues and potential employers want to know that you have credibility in the industry. Request a recommendation from a colleague, previous employer, or expert in your field who is willing to provide a testimonial about your work ethic and/or experience.

Write a recommendation. Likewise, show your support by writing a review on behalf of a connection. Be specific about why you recommend this person, what they have contributed to their organization or field, or what they have to offer a potential employer. Note that you must be sent a request, so don’t hesitate to reach out to your connection and ask them to initiate the recommendation process if you feel so compelled.
Share an update. Post relevant, informative content about your practice, your company and/or the veterinary profession. Share specific information that could spark comments or reactions from your connections. Publish an article? See a cool case? Read an interesting study? See something on a colleague’s feed? Make a post and add your thoughts!
Share an article from a trusted source's feed. Sharing articles is a great way to collaborate with other reliable sources and bring awareness to important topics within your industry. It’s also a great way to find content without having to reinvent the wheel.
Connect with colleagues you know. One of the bonuses of joining LinkedIn is being able to connect with millions of people around the world. Specifically, you can connect with colleagues who may be part of your inner circle or those whose paths you have crossed at some point in your professional career. Establishing these connections can lead to meaningful professional opportunities. Connect with me here!
Schedule time to log in and make connections. Make a habit to log in to your LinkedIn account three times a week and spend at least 10 minutes browsing your news feed for worthwhile information, accepting invitations from viable connections, and responding to significant messages.

Set up or improve your profile today, and start connecting! Need more help with LinkedIn? Take a peek at my on-demand course!

Let's connect!
Caitlin

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Captioning Your Videos: A Guide For Every Social Media Platform

11/7/2019

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Can you believe nearly 85% of mobile users watch social media videos with the sound OFF? Truthfully, I can. I almost never have my sound on- I’m always worried about my phone going off in an exam room or waking up a kiddo at home. It’s just easier for to leave the phone’s sound off.

Consider this stat along with the facts that:
1) videos are the preferred social media content (from the perspective of users and algorithms alike) and
2) we have just a few short seconds to capture our viewer’s attention.

Combined, these reasons make captioning your videos a worthy investment of time and in some cases, money. Captions are a great way to improve the length of watch time as well as getting your viewer to understand your message.

Even on image-heavy Instagram, captions can increase view time by 12%.

Adding captions sounds hard, but really can be done in just a few steps. Here’s the roundup of the platforms and options:

A quick note about file type: I had never heard of an .SRT file (SubRip file type) before I started captioning videos, so don’t feel bad if you hadn’t either!

Facebook

Auto-generated:

Click Photo/Video at the top of your timeline or News Feed.
After the video has loaded and you’ve added your title and description, click “subtitles and captions” in the right hand toolbar.
Click “Auto-generate” under “Add New Captions.”
Wait for Facebook to quickly generate and add your file before posting

Upload your own caption file (We recommend Rev.com to generate):
- Click Photo/Video at the top of your timeline or News Feed.
- After the video has loaded and you’ve added your title and description, click “subtitles and captions” in the right hand toolbar.
- Click “Upload” under “Add New Captions.”
- Select your file and click next when uploading is complete. Note: you’ll be looking for a file that looks like this: YourCaptionFile.en_US.srt.
- Choose the default language for your caption file (English).
- Publish Your Video
  
  Adding captions to previously posted videos:
- Click “Edit Post” and follow the steps above
  
  LinkedIn
- Create a new post and click the video icon to add a video to it.
- When it has fully loaded but before posting, click the Edit icon in the upper right corner
- Select video settings
- Select file
- Attach your SRT file
- Click save
- Add any additional text, hashtags, etc and post!
  
  The only downside with adding captions to a LinkedIn video is that currently, I haven’t found a way to schedule captioned content.

Instagram
Unfortunately, the only way to include subtitles on your Instagram videos is to have them be a part of the original file. There are a few apps that can help with this, or traditional video editing software like Adobe Premier Pro.

YouTube

Go to your Video Manager by clicking your account in the top right > Creator Studio > Video Manager > Videos.
Next to the video you want to add captions or subtitles to, click the drop-down menu next to the Edit button.
Select Subtitles/CC.
Click the Add new subtitles or CC button.
Choose how you want to add or edit subtitles or closed captions to your video:

Note: If you’re using a service like Rev.com, you’re in luck! Rev integrates with YouTube and will auto-upload your captions!

Twitter

Click on a video within your Media Studio library.
Select the “Subtitles” tab in the pop-up window.
Select the text language of your subtitle file from the dropdown menu.
Click the “Upload” button and select the .SRT file from your local computer.
The file is now associated with your video. To update the file, click the Pencil icon.

Happy Captioning!
The Social DVM Team

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Claiming Your LinkedIn Profile URL

10 Ways to Improve Your LinkedIn Profile

Captioning Your Videos: A Guide For Every Social Media Platform

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