A LinkedIn Spring Clean Checklist to Start Fresh for the New Year
When your LinkedIn feels inactive, so does your professional personal brand. To breathe new life into your LinkedIn, try this spring clean routine.
Use the end of the year to reset, reimagine and recreate your professional personal brand’s presence on LinkedIn.
Here’s a 6-step guide for you to step into the new year with your best digital foot forward for your personal brand. Because those back-to-school fresh feels should be for grown-ups too.
1. Feng Shui your Social Feed
In their book Joy at Work, cleaning sensation Marie Kondo, best-selling author of The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up and Spark Joy, teams up with organisational psychologist Scott Sonenshein. The duo apply Kondo’s famous ‘Spark Joy’ mentality to the workplace.
The book highlights that when you clean the clutter, you clear the way for receiving more of what you need. As Kondo points out, even Feng Shui experts agree. When you clear space in your inbox, you attract more of what you need to get your work done. So, why not apply the same Feng Shui mindset to your LinkedIn to power your personal brand goals?
Perhaps your personal brand priorities have changed? Unfollow the businesses that no longer align with your personal brand and are cluttering your attention. You might even want to unfollow and disconnect with people, which leads me to my next point.
2. Burn your Bridges
For as long as we can remember, the mantra has been to not burn any bridges professionally, especially with a former workplace or colleagues. It was otherwise professional, personal brand suicide.
The maxim ‘burn your bridges’ is believed to come from a Roman military tactic to prevent all opportunity for retreat, going all in on your next move. But times are changing. Employees have become less of a slave to the iron fists of corporations that may have treated them immorally, unethically or even illegally. Your social feed is your own. Nobody is entitled to a spot on it. Remove any toxic relationships that don’t spark joy in your sacred personal brand space. There are over 8 billion people in the world. You’ll build new bridges.
There’s a YouTuber whose content I love who experienced a meteoric rise up the ranks for her personal brand. Coming from the ultra-conservative investment banking industry, she discusses having removed all her former colleagues from her LinkedIn. This was more about her personal brand goals than it was about them. She didn’t want to worry about who might be watching, and the fear of feeling embarrassed limiting her ideas.
If burning your bridges is too much for you, there’s always the ‘unfollow’ button. You’ll forget who you even have on your LinkedIn while you build your personal brand in confidence.
3. Connect and Follow with Intention
With your social media feed cleaned up, start following with intention.
Is there a dream employer, client or partner you want to align your personal brand with? Make sure you’re following them and are completely across their activities.
You might want to start connecting with strangers in your field - especially those on the global stage. Grant Cardone, in The 10X Rule, discusses how big winners don’t copy, they create. But, if you’re going to be taking inspiration from anyone, make sure it’s the biggest possible people in the world in your field. An insider look into successful people has never been more accessible to your personal brand than it is right now. You’ll instantly elevate your own personal brand standards beyond the echo chamber you’re in and attract more of what you’re seeking.
In Dr Wayne Dyer’s book The Power of Intention, Dyer discusses that everything is energy. By aligning your thoughts, feelings, and actions with positive intentions and higher frequencies of energy, you can manifest desired outcomes in your life. This is less woohoo and more a matter of quantum physics and the principle that potentialities exist in a state of probability until observed or manifested. So, focus less on your personal brand’s position and more on its potential.
Stacking your social feed with only your top priorities and most inspiring personal brands taps into your mind's ‘reticular activation system’ - which tells your brain what to focus on.
4. Spring Clean your SEO
The end of the year is a great time to reset your SEO strategy for your professional personal brand. Review (or even rewrite) your LinkedIn headline and bio to align with your current personal brand priorities, keeping your target SEO search terms in mind.
Review your skills list. Check for outdated skills or errors. The skills section of your LinkedIn profile is basically your LinkedIn keywords. So, choose carefully and make sure there aren’t any obvious omissions and you're strongly aligned with your personal brand goals.
People get recruited directly from the personal brand profile they’ve created on LinkedIn all the time. I know many people who have landed dream roles simply because they had an SEO-optimised profile. If you’re not in the market for a new job, an eye for SEO will still help you become discoverable in your industry by your peers and potential partners.
I’ve discussed How to Search Engine Optimise Your LinkedIn Profile in a previous blog. You can learn more about little details to empower your online professional personal brand.
5. Get Ready to Glow Up
Remember what it was like to glow up over the summer school holidays, and come back to school with your best attempt at a fresh start for the year? New books, new stationery, and maybe even a new look. There’s something symbolically beautiful about this that adults tend to miss in our usually shorter breaks. The chance to hit refresh and start over for our personal brand. So, why not apply the same thinking to your LinkedIn? Instead of carrying any hangovers from the previous year, start the new year feeling fresh and ready for your personal brand’s best year yet.
Use the end of the year to plan for a new headshot and LinkedIn banner. I shared more about how you can instantly elevate your professional personal brand in a previous blog on how to Glow Up Your LinkedIn Profile for a Dazzling First Impression (8 Tips).
The great thing about the festive season is there are usually lots of times you look your best. Before you put your party clothes on to head to your next event, take a photo with a professional look. When I first launched my business, I snapped the headshot I used across all my business material in a few minutes before leaving for Christmas lunch. Just don’t make the mistake of the event photo crop for your profile. Take a photo specifically for LinkedIn with your professional brand in mind, and go ‘back to school’ with a refreshingly new look.
6. Plan your ‘Portfolio of Proof’
Research has shown January is the most popular time of the year to quit your job. Maybe at the start of 2025, that’s you, maybe it will be in 2026 or years after. Either way, start planning your ‘Portfolio of Proof’ now.
Studies show that 60% of recruiters review social media profiles during the hiring process. If you work for yourself, savvy clients likely will, too. What does a potential employer, client or partner experience with your professional personal brand when they land on your page? Does your profile feel inactive, outdated and disengaged with the professional world around you?
In the book Show Your Work, by Austin Kleon, he says:
“Imagine if your next boss didn’t have to read your résumé because he already reads your blog. Imagine being a student and getting your first gig based on a school project you posted online. Imagine losing your job but having a social network of people familiar with your work and ready to help you find a new one.”
If you’re not doing it already, make a plan for 2025 to start creating your ‘Portfolio of Proof’ for your professional personal brand - your expertise. So that you get the job before your next employer or client ever actually meets you.
Use the end-of-year break to reset your LinkedIn and get ‘back to school’ with a fresh new You for your personal brand.
