LinkedIn is the world’s largest professional network with over 850 million members worldwide. It’s an invaluable platform for networking, job searching, branding, and business opportunities. However, there are certain dos and don’ts you should follow to get the most out of LinkedIn and avoid common mistakes. In this comprehensive guide, we’ll explore best practices for optimizing your LinkedIn presence, increasing engagement, connecting with the right people, and avoiding pitfalls.
Complete Your Profile 100%
Having a complete profile on LinkedIn is essential for presenting your professional persona. Make sure to include all relevant details – a professional headshot, industry and location, summary section highlighting skills and achievements, work experience with descriptions, education history, licenses and certifications, volunteer work, accomplishments, recommendations, and more. A fully fleshed out profile has a much higher chance of appearing in searches and establishes your credibility and personal brand.
Customize Your LinkedIn URL
Customizing your public profile URL with your own name makes your profile stand out and easier to remember/share. On desktop, go to your profile, click “Edit public profile & URL” on the right rail, then enter your customized URL. On mobile, go to your profile, tap “Edit profile” at the top, then “Public profile settings” and enter a custom URL.
Showcase Skills And Expertise
Highlighting your skills, competencies, and expertise is key for visibility and discoverability on LinkedIn. Add details under the Skills section and include up to 50 of your most relevant skills. Leverage skill endorsements and recommendations from connections to bolster your skills. Also consider displaying badges like Licenses & Certifications to showcase your credentials.
Expand Your Network Thoughtfully
When expanding your connections, focus on quality over quantity. Look to connect with industry peers, former colleagues, clients, employers, leading professionals in your sector, and relevant groups. Avoid mass connection requests to strangers, and personalized each invitation. Maintain a healthy balance between giving and receiving in your network.
Join Relevant Groups And Be Active
Joining niche professional groups aligned to your industry allows you to showcase knowledge, build connections, and participate in valuable discussions. Choose groups where you can provide meaningful contributions. Share advice, comment on posts, and post interesting articles. Moderation is crucial – avoid self-promotional or overly promotional content.
Follow Influential Companies And Thought Leaders
Following companies you admire or relevant thought leaders and influencers gives you visibility into key developments, opportunities, and insightful content. Curate your feed with trusted voices that provide value. Avoid following solely for the purpose of gaining a follow back. Engage thoughtfully with content from those you follow.
Check Notifications Frequently
Stay on top of your LinkedIn activity by checking notifications regularly. This allows you to respond to new connection and messaging requests, join recently recommended groups, engage with content from your feed, and stay current. Enable email notifications if you prefer getting pinged about LinkedIn alerts.
Give Thoughtful Endorsements
LinkedIn endorsements boost profiles and establish your credibility as an expert in your space. But endorsements should be authentic, thoughtful, and given judiciously. Only endorse the skills of connections you’ve worked with directly and can vouch for. Take care not to endorse indiscriminately or in expectation of reciprocity.
Personalize Connection Requests
When sending connection invites, avoid generic messages like “I’d like to add you to my network.” Take the time to craft a personalized note highlighting shared connections, interests, or groups. This helps put a name to a face and makes accepting requests more worthwhile. Personalized invites lead to higher acceptance rates.
Recommend Connections Thoughtfully
Writing recommendations highlights positive working relationships and mutual respect. But only provide recommendations for those you’ve worked closely with and can strongly endorse. The quality and authenticity of your words hold more weight than the quantity of reviews. Recommendations should offer specific examples that shed light on work ethic, skills, values, and impact.
Stay Current With Content Sharing
Establish yourself as an industry thought leader by sharing interesting and useful articles, insights, and trends. Add value by providing thoughtful commentary. But avoid sharing too much or irrelevant content that clutters the feeds of your connections. Also be wary of over-promoting your own material and posting with purely self-motivated reasons.
Expand Connections At Industry Events
Attending conferences, seminars, networking events and trade shows provides opportunities to grow your real world network. Identify attendees of interest through the LinkedIn Events feature. Relationship-building in person can then lead to great virtual connections afterward. But avoid aggressively pitching or only interacting with the sole purpose of acquiring new LinkedIn connections.
Show Support For Causes
Displaying company values and priorities builds brand loyalty. Follow and share content from nonprofits and causes you care about. Just ensure support is genuine, not simply for show. You can also strengthen relationships with like-minded connections by engaging with their socially conscious content and groups. But avoid virtue signaling without substance.
Publish Long-Form Content
Publishing long-form posts beyond just short updates provides room for thought leadership. Write posts that provide value, insights, tips, behind-the-scenes perspective, industry analysis, etc. Include images, videos, and calls-to-action. Promote content across channels to maximize reach. Value quality over quantity with posts to avoid saturating your network’s feeds.
Stay Active With Regular Updates
Posting updates allows you to stay top of mind while sharing milestones and achievements. But avoid updates that are too frequent, promotional, or irrelevant. Maintain a balance between professional and personal updates to humanize your brand. Respond to reactions, comments, and engagement from your connections to foster community.
Clean Up Old Content
Just as you would tidy up a resume, optimize your LinkedIn profile by pruning dated or irrelevant content. Remove positions from too long ago, skills that no longer apply, and outdated contact info. Also tighten up bloated content. An edited and concentrated profile is more effective. But archives can help maintain records of past experiences and accomplishments.
Optimize All Content For SEO
Ensuring content is SEO-friendly helps maximize LinkedIn profile discoverability. Include targeted keywords in headings, summaries, job descriptions, and posts. Add alt text to images and videos. Post content natively when possible vs. links. Headlines that encourage clicks and sharing also improve reach.
Be Authentic and Personable
While maintaining a professional presence, also showcase your unique personality, values and interests to connect on a human level. Share humor, passion, and purpose. Relatable stories and anecdotes make you memorable and influential. Just ensure you balance your personal brand with the professional purpose of the platform.
Connect Face-to-Face When Possible
Try to follow up LinkedIn connections with face-to-face meetings for coffee, meals or informal chats when feasible. Building in-person rapport strengthens relationships. People also prefer doing business with connections they’ve met in real life. Face-to-face meetings make you more memorable and trustworthy.
Request Informational Interviews
Informational interviews involve asking connections for career advice and insights vs. job leads. These value-focused connections build goodwill and expand your network. Avoid turning informational interviews into big asks. Prepare questions showing you did your homework on their background. Send thank you notes after informational interviews.
Promote Company Culture and Values
Demonstrating what your company stands for helps attract talent and builds engagement internally and externally. Share content and images that provide an inside look at company culture, values, people and community impact. Promoting values-focused business humanizes your brand and also inspires your team.
Showcase CSR and Philanthropy
Consumers care about corporate social responsibility and are drawn to brands that give back. Share about CSR initiatives such as volunteering, fundraising, sustainability, ethical manufacturing, etc. But avoid appearing promotional; CSR should come from a genuine place of purpose, not for publicity.
Leverage Employee Advocacy
Mobilize employees as brand ambassadors sharing company updates, achievements, events, job openings, and thought leadership. This lends credibility and reach. Consider incentives for top advocates. Ensure guidelines are provided for employees on best practices for participating as brand ambassadors.
Don’t Put Contacts at Risk
Avoid posting any content or misrepresenting yourself in ways that could reflect poorly on connections. Be mindful not to damage the reputation of previous employers or colleagues. Represent your contacts and brand affiliations professionally. Be cautious about over-posting political or controversial hot takes that put contacts in awkward situations.
Keep it Classy and Professional
As an extension of your personal brand and resume, the content you post on LinkedIn should maintain the highest levels of professionalism. Keep posts and discussions civil and take care to avoid overly emotional outbursts or venting. Respect boundaries and refrain from sharing overly personal details or inappropriate content.
Don’t Overshare
While some personal updates help forge connections and increase approachability, oversharing unprofessional or private details muddies your personal brand and digital footprint. Maintain clear boundaries between your professional and private personas. Avoid venting about work or posting inappropriate or objectionable content in the public forum of LinkedIn.
Don’t Request Recommendations Too Soon
Asking for recommendations right after connecting or before establishing a strong working relationship can seem insincere or transactional. Wait until you’ve worked closely together on projects and can request recommendations for specific examples that highlight work you’re proud of. This lends more authenticity and weight.
Don’t Endorse Indiscriminately
Giving endorsements just to receive them devalues the purpose of skill verification. Only endorse skills you can authentically validate based on first-hand experience working together. Indiscriminate endorsements of those you hardly know lack credibility and clutter up feeds with noise. Focus on quality over quantity with endorsements.
Don’t Share Too Much Self-Promotional Content
While Social Selling best practices encourage sharing your own content, make sure self-promotion doesn’t become all you share. Over posting self-serving content like links to your latest Forbes articles or ebooks will turn off your audience. Follow the 80/20 rule – only 20% of what you share should point back to your own material or channels.
Don’t Neglect Privacy Settings
Adjust your privacy settings to control what’s visible to the wider public vs. just direct connections. Under account settings, you can also untag yourself from posts and photos. While an open profile boosts your exposure, it’s wise to limit access to personal contact info and family-related details that could present security risks if leaked publicly.
Don’t Add Contacts Without Consent
Assume the best intentions when connecting with peers and avoid recklessly posting other’s private contact information or social profiles without consent. Make sure you have permission before tagging others in photos, posts, or mentions that will alert their networks of the affiliation. Respect people’s boundaries and preferences around their public association with you.
Don’t Abuse Messaging
While reaching out directly can be more personal, avoid bombarding connections with unsolicited and overly promotional messaging. This comes off as spammy. Most LinkedIn members prefer network updates and engagement through feeds vs. constant direct messages. Save direct messaging for confirmed mutual interest and always include a clear value proposition upfront.
Don’t Leverage Connections
The biggest LinkedIn faux pas is viewing your network as transactional stepping stones. Don’t approach new connections with immediate asks and favors before building rapport and trust. Avoid treating your network like pawns to further your own agenda vs. mutually beneficial relationships. Focus on give and take, not just take.
Conclusion
Mastering LinkedIn etiquette optimizes your brand presence while building authentic relationships, expanding reach, engaging meaningfully, and avoiding missteps. By following these dos and don’ts, you’ll position yourself for long-term success. Remember to showcase your expertise, add value, build trust, and promote others. With the right etiquette, LinkedIn can transform your professional journey.
