The 5 Biggest Mistakes Made on LinkedIn

Welcome to episode 212. A big thanks for all the feedback from last weeks show. Most of you seemed to enjoy Marjorie’s information about ProFinder although I was surprised by a couple of people who felt I shouldn’t have been promoting a service such as ProFinder - the premise being that LinkedIn are creating a market that is free to use (even though it isn’t) and once people are dependent on ProFinder as a source of work, they will start to charge more for it. I massively struggle with that mindset - I can remember people in recruitment saying exactly the same thing about LinkedIn “Don’t support a business threat” was a common view and look at where we are now? You can’t put your head in the sand on things like that, a perceived ‘threat’ can become an opportunity but only if you embrace it.

This week I’m looking for your help… I’m thinking of writing a book about my famous ‘rants’ about LinkedIn - I want to focus on the things that people do wrong or the things that go wrong on LinkedIn. Ideally from a humorous perspective.

What have you seen happen on LinkedIn that is a good example of a mishap or poor practice? You don’t need to name names, just tell me the story.

As a starting point, I though I would cover my 5 biggest mistakes I see on LinkedIn and hope that you can help me add to the list.

But first…..

Interesting Stuff I Saw This Week

Airline sources a plane via a LinkedIn post!

Mark Zuckerberg doesn’t consider LinkedIn to be a competitor

The Company (Drift) that did that cool video takeover thing on LinkedIn Here’s an example of one of the videos posted by one of the team at Drift

New LinkedIn Features

New Sales Navigator profiles - a definite improvement

The people also views has gone but they do have an extra ‘Recommended leads at:’ section that isn’t shown above

 

Using Stickers and Text to Stand Out on LinkedIn Video

‘How You Match’ feature speeds up time-to-hire

Post of the Week

This one obviously resonated with me! Thanks to Gary Stockton for sending this one in.

Have you seen a post that you really enjoyed recently on LinkedIn? If so drop me a note on LinkedIn or via mark@linkedinformed.com with a link to the post.

 

The 5 Biggest Mistakes Made on LinkedIn

1. Poor quality profile. I’m amazed I still find myself saying this one! Bad profile pics, unedited headlines, non existent summaries, no background images….the list goes on and on. When will people realise that this is their professional identity online?!
2. Promiscuous Connecting. Whilst it once made sense to grow very large networks and adopt a LION philosophy, those days are gone….in fact they have been gone for at least 5 years! Oversized networks add little extra value to your visibility, confuse the algorithm and potentially expose your other connections to scammers. Many automation tools facilitate this behaviour and it’s a massive mistake
3. Inactivity. Linkedin are lucky to get 25% of their users to log in more than once a month….and that’s in a good quarter! There really is very little point in LinkedIn if you don’t at least engage in some activity every week. These ultra passive users are missing all sorts of opportunities. Even those that are active often ‘hold back’ on LinkedIn and are too scared or shy to post or comment on others posts, another missed opportunity.
4. Direct selling. Sometimes is just blatant spam but more common than that is the blunt ‘I want something from you’ messages, InMail or posts. It’s like trying to french kiss someone when you first meet them on a first date! Another aspect of this is the ‘McFly’ posts you see all the time ‘Look at me’ ‘Aren't we wonderful’ and ‘look how we can help you (at a cost)’ - it’s all about you!
5. Lazy Networking. Similar to the post of the week as shown above. Extensive use of short canned messages such as ‘congrats’ or only ever liking posts and never being bothered to comment, invitations that are not personalised or personalised with a message that is clearly sent to everyone (automation)