It’s been a while since I wrote about LinkedIn, and the more I use the platform, the more I realize its powerful potential. But also, I get exposed to so many poor practices sometimes I LOL (only if no one is around… OK, I threw in the acronym to see if you were paying attention).
So I thought it was high time for another LinkedIn blog, this time on practices to avoid.
Incomplete information. Regardless of what kind of work you do or what type of career you have, LinkedIn is offering you a free search engine friendly web portal, a resume, a place to show the world what you do and what you’re capable of doing. So why not use it to its fullest capability? The fields that get the most attention are:
- Headline: fill it in as much as you can – the field is much longer than you’d expect.
- Summary and specialties: why do so many people have short summaries? Fill up the area as much as you can with an easily readable format (nobody wants to read a long paragraph – use spaces and bullets).
- Links: not just your company link, but also if you’ve been mentioned in an article, if you have written white papers, or if you have a profile on a company website. Make sure to name them properly by using the “other” option.
- Experience: highlight accomplishments as you would in a resume.
You can always check my profile for some guidelines, although I’d be the first to admit it’s not 100% perfect. And don’t forget about good formatting and especially keywords.
Hiding your profile. I don’t get why people do this. I guess if you’re the CEO of GM, you don’t want your info exposed, but if you’re the CEO of GM you’re probably not reading this blog, so for the rest of you, expose the profile as much as you can. If there’s info you don’t want exposed, just remove it from the profile.
Poor grammar & typos. This is so easy to fix and so many people still have problems with it. Drop all the content into a Microsoft Word to catch the spelling and grammar errors. If you're really bad at writing, there are now professional LinkedIn profile writers who can do this for a fee.
Impersonal connection requests. This is like walking into a bar and immediately asking for people’s phone numbers. If you’re interested in a connection, you should start it with a conversation, even a short one. There’s a “note” section in the connection request. Use it.
Recommendations. There are so many wrong ways to get recommendations it deserves its own blog, but I’ll make it short. Recommendations should come from people who know you or have worked with you AND have something nice to say. Not brain surgery, right? So why is it so many people get it wrong? Here is a list of the wrong ways to get them:
- Recommendations from strangers: this is not a joke, I recently saw a recommendation that said something like “I don’t know Mr. xxx but I’m sure he’d be good at whatever he does.” Oh, that’s really impressive.
- Recommendations from people who either don’t know you well or haven’t worked with you: I talk to a guy once, and the next thing you know I’m getting a recommendation request. Really? Needless to say I ignored it, but if this guy had waited a few weeks, he might have received a good recommendation from me.
- Not checking the recommendation for accuracy: LinkedIn allows you to ask for revisions before you accept the recommendation. Just about all of my recommendations either had typos, grammatical errors, or factual errors in them. Make sure it’s clean and crisp, otherwise it reflects negatively on you too.
Not building a network. Having a good profile is kind of useless on its own. The point is to build a network you can regularly tap into. I wish LinkedIn was around back 20 years ago – I’ve lost so many good college and business contacts along the way. Build the network and stay in touch.
Over-promotion. I cut people a lot of slack but some people overdo the self promotion, the service promotion, etc. Remember there’s a “hide” button on the feeds, and if people get sick of your promotions, they’ll hide all your actions from their feed, or worse yet, they’ll remove you from their connection list.
Unprofessional behavior. Does this need any explanations? With new LinkedIn features, even people beyond your network can see your comments on status updates, groups, etc. Keep it professional.
I can already think of 10-12 other things I can add to the list, but this should do it. Make sure to use all the features LinkedIn offers including the great applications and the groups.
If you have any funny (or not so funny) stories about mistakes people make on LinkedIn, I’d love to hear from you. Put them in the comment section.
Showing posts with label using linkedin. Show all posts
Showing posts with label using linkedin. Show all posts
July 13, 2010
December 15, 2009
Social media housekeeping during the holidays – LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook
As everyone gears up (or down) for the holidays, this might be a good time to take a step back and perform some housekeeping on your social media activities. Just like other aspects of your business, your social media gets outdated, collects garbage, and needs to get refreshed. I’ll be writing a lot more about social media in the future, so come back and visit.
Social media handbook
If your employees are using any form of social media, it may be a good time to develop a “social media guidelines” handbook for them (especially true for LinkedIn, where work related activity is more pronounced). You need to ensure your company is not misrepresented and your employees keep your image consistent with your goals, but check with an attorney to make sure you’re not stepping over the line.
LinkedIn
This is where most business social networking/media occurs, and it has become the de facto networking site to search for information on companies and individuals. Whether you’re cleaning up or catching up, set some time aside to take care of the following:
Company profile. Have you developed new products or technologies? Have you entered new verticals? Have you acquired other companies? Make sure your company profile is up to date.
Personal profile update. Check your personal profile and make sure it still reflects how you’d like to be presented. Did you perform new activities that haven’t been included in your profile? It’s the end of the year. You can review your 2009 activities and update anything that’s worth mentioning.
Contacts. I know so many people who haven’t connected to all their contacts yet. Someone I recently met told me he has so many contacts, he went through all the names up to the letter L, and never finished it (!). Make sure all your contacts are connected to you on LinkedIn. This is a good time to send a “happy holidays” note along with a connection request. Never send a blank request without a note.
Recommendations requests. If you performed a great job with a client, a partner, or a vendor, before they forget about it, make sure to ask for a recommendation. This is another one where a nice “happy holiday” or “nice working with you in 2009” note will come in handy. Once you receive this recommendation, you can also use it on your website, corporate presentations, etc.
Groups. There are new groups being created every day. Go through your groups list and see if you still benefit from all of them. If you don’t, leave the less interesting ones and join newer or more interesting groups.
Applications. LinkedIn occasionally adds new useful applications without announcing them. Check the apps section of LinkedIn and make sure to use the ones that pique your interest.
Q&A ratings. If you asked any questions, go back and rate the responses.
Twitter
Most companies are still confused about Twitter and how to use it, but if you are a user, make sure you have an informative “background” on your profile with marketing info, contacts, “links” (you can’t really link on them) and pleasing background colors. You can google “twitter background” and find a lot of free or cheap background pages on the web.
Facebook
If your company has a Facebook page, you can use it for a last push for product promotions during the holidays. But also with your “happy holidays” note, make sure to ask your followers to recommend you to their friends to increase followers.
As I mentioned, I’ll be writing a lot more in the future about specifics of social media. If there are any specific topics you’d like me to write about, feel free to let me know in the “comments” section of this blog.
Social media handbook
If your employees are using any form of social media, it may be a good time to develop a “social media guidelines” handbook for them (especially true for LinkedIn, where work related activity is more pronounced). You need to ensure your company is not misrepresented and your employees keep your image consistent with your goals, but check with an attorney to make sure you’re not stepping over the line.
This is where most business social networking/media occurs, and it has become the de facto networking site to search for information on companies and individuals. Whether you’re cleaning up or catching up, set some time aside to take care of the following:
Company profile. Have you developed new products or technologies? Have you entered new verticals? Have you acquired other companies? Make sure your company profile is up to date.
Personal profile update. Check your personal profile and make sure it still reflects how you’d like to be presented. Did you perform new activities that haven’t been included in your profile? It’s the end of the year. You can review your 2009 activities and update anything that’s worth mentioning.
Contacts. I know so many people who haven’t connected to all their contacts yet. Someone I recently met told me he has so many contacts, he went through all the names up to the letter L, and never finished it (!). Make sure all your contacts are connected to you on LinkedIn. This is a good time to send a “happy holidays” note along with a connection request. Never send a blank request without a note.
Recommendations requests. If you performed a great job with a client, a partner, or a vendor, before they forget about it, make sure to ask for a recommendation. This is another one where a nice “happy holiday” or “nice working with you in 2009” note will come in handy. Once you receive this recommendation, you can also use it on your website, corporate presentations, etc.
Groups. There are new groups being created every day. Go through your groups list and see if you still benefit from all of them. If you don’t, leave the less interesting ones and join newer or more interesting groups.
Applications. LinkedIn occasionally adds new useful applications without announcing them. Check the apps section of LinkedIn and make sure to use the ones that pique your interest.
Q&A ratings. If you asked any questions, go back and rate the responses.
Most companies are still confused about Twitter and how to use it, but if you are a user, make sure you have an informative “background” on your profile with marketing info, contacts, “links” (you can’t really link on them) and pleasing background colors. You can google “twitter background” and find a lot of free or cheap background pages on the web.
If your company has a Facebook page, you can use it for a last push for product promotions during the holidays. But also with your “happy holidays” note, make sure to ask your followers to recommend you to their friends to increase followers.
As I mentioned, I’ll be writing a lot more in the future about specifics of social media. If there are any specific topics you’d like me to write about, feel free to let me know in the “comments” section of this blog.
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