How To Grab People’s Attention On LinkedIn With Emojis

It feels so weird to be talking about Emojis when talking about LinkedIn. LinkedIn is the professional network and people on LinkedIn are all about business. Why would we want to talk about using what are essentially little cartoons on a professional social platform full of businesspeople? Simply put, it’s about grabbing people’s attention.

Since LinkedIn is all about business, you typically see nothing but blue and white on the screen. Profile pictures can be a great way to stand out, but when you are scanning recommended connection an Emoji is scarce enough to get you to take a second glance. It can be easy to blend into the fray of everyone else on LinkedIn. But if you can do just one little thing to stand out, it can make a big difference.

Why Use Emojis?

When I have time, I like to look through my recommended connections. These are typically connections of people I am already connected to. It seems that the more mutual connections we have, the more likely we are to be a good fit for each other.

I find myself scanning through these endless lists of recommendations. I have a specific type of person that I want to connect with on LinkedIn. I’m one of those weird people that don’t connect with any and every person on LinkedIn.

While I am scanning these recommendations, I start to notice that I always stop scrolling when I see an Emoji on someone’s headline.  It’s a simple yet colorful icon that stands out when you are scanning. It almost forces me to stop and have a second look. I realized that there must be something to this. I also start to realize that any time someone comments on posts that this same headline with an emojis stands out from the rest of the commenters.

This is good information. I know that people who use LinkedIn are busy. That’s why we are scrolling through LinkedIn. We want to grab some data in the few seconds that we are on the platform before me move on. If you can get someone to take an extra second to notice your headline, then you have a better chance of having them visit your profile and begin a conversation.

How Did Emojis Make Their Way To LinkedIn?

This is a complete guess, but I am going to assume that the start of using emojis on LinkedIn originated on Instagram. Why? On Instagram, you are limited on the amount of text that you can use on your profile. The reason is that the purpose on Instagram is to be a visual platform that is dominated by unique and personal pictures.

I was watching some training from an Instagram expert, Sue B. Zimmerman, about how to optimize your profile bio. She educates on the use of emojis in your bio to support the conversation and to help create calls to action. I started looking into successful Instagram profiles and they too were using a number of emojis in their bio. You can use single character emojis to express complex ideas.

I noticed that the same type of emojis that were used to grab attention and create a call to action could be useful on LinkedIn. When scrolling potential profiles on LinkedIn, you are limited on what people see. They can see your profile picture, your name, your title, and the beginning of your headline.

In fact, this is about all you see in various parts of LinkedIn. The only variable is the length of the headline that is shown. It is your job to use this real estate wisely and attempt to grab the attention of other people on LinkedIn and entice them to look at your profile.

If you can slap a simple emoji at the beginning of your headline, you at least get awarded with an additional split second to sell your profile to a viewer.

Where Can You Find Emojis?

After I discovered that emojis might be a great addition to my headline, I began searching for a great place to find emojis. I quickly found myself on getemoji.com. The reason I liked this site is that there are over 1,000 emojis. There are emojis in all kinds of categories.

There are animal emojis. People emojis. Plant emojis. Weather Emojis. There are food emojis. Emojis about sports. If you are trying to find an emoji that would work for you then using a site like Get Emoji makes sense. It has a type of search engine that allows you to type in some keywords. This makes finding the right emoji easy.

When choosing an emoji, I recommend finding something that is colorful. You need it to stand out from all of the profiles and even from all of the other uses of emojis on LinkedIn. Try o find something unique to you. If you are a personal trainer, you may be interested in a weightlifting emoji. Are you a photographer? There are camera emojis.

Popular emojis include the rocket, a fire, or the big red question mark. There is a green checkbox that really stands out and I have seen many people on LinkedIn use it.

Once you find the emoji that you want to use, you can easily copy and paste it into your headline. I also use emojis in my summary as a great way to break up the information.

Do Emojis Really Work?

I don’t think that is any data that supports the use of emojis on LinkedIn. The data that I have is the experience I had when I first discovered people using emojis on LinkedIn. The purpose of using emojis on LinkedIn is to get someone to take a second glance at my headline. If I can use my headline to sell the view of my profile, then the emoji is a winner.

Emojis have a great way to express ideas and clarifications. It’s scientifically proven that adding an emoji to a text can clarify the feeling behind the text. I must believe then that the use of emojis allows us to attract directly into the lizard brain in the humans that are scanning LinkedIn. We are attracted to movement and something different creates a need in our brain to explain any changes to our environment.

Things To Watch Out For

Whatever you do, don’t overuse emojis. Yes, you can overuse emojis. Keep LinkedIn professional and be tasteful with the use of emojis on your LinkedIn profile. You want to simply grab someone’s attention with emojis. You don’t want to seem like you are screaming out in desperation. I don’t recommend placing emojis on your name or even on your title.

I think the best place to put emojis is in the headline. I think that an emoji at the beginning is enough to grab someone’s attention. I have even placed an emoji in the middle if there is a transition in thought in the middle of the headline.

Good use of this is having an emoji at the beginning of your headline to grab attention. Follow this up with a question. Then use a pointing emoji that points at the rest of the headline that includes the answer. The only problem with this approach is that the headline is hidden at various points on different devices so you don’t always get the right effect.

What do you think? Will you start using emojis on your LinkedIn profile? Did you find this post helpful? If so, be sure to share it with your connections.

By the way, do you want some LinkedIn tips to help you increase your LinkedIn power? Check out my free course where I share four amazing steps you can take to kick ass on LinkedIn. It’s totally free and you don’t even have to opt-in. Just head over to https://linkedmvp.com.