CLEVELAND, Ohio — Are you on LinkedIn?
Great!
But are you making the most of your public, career-related branding opportunity?
Experts say, probably not.
Although LinkedIn is the world’s largest professional networking service in terms of membership, a quick perusal of the site shows not everyone puts the same amount of effort into their LinkedIn presence.
Here, then, are the nine biggest mistakes you’re probably making on LinkedIn:
No. 1 Instead of a photo, you have that generic grey-and-white silhouette.
Or worse, you have a photo that’s not appropriate for a workplace site.
“This is not Facebook,” said Leigh Mars, director of executive search for Ratliffe & Taylor Inc., a human resources and leadership development consulting firm in Independence.
It should be a professional head shot in professional attire with a professional background, not pictures with your children or from your vacation at Disney World, she said.
No. 2 Your LinkedIn password is “Linkedin” or “Password.”
On June 6, Russian hackers apparently broke into LinkedIn and posted what they said were nearly 6.5 million LinkedIn passwords onto a Russian web forum.
LinkedIn disabled the decoded passwords, alerted members whose accounts were compromised, beefed up security, and said it is still investigating what happened.
As that incident made glaringly clear, having a hard-to-guess, ever-changing password is the best way to protect your account from being infiltrated.
Also, it’s never a good idea to use the same password for different accounts, just in case something like this happens again.
No. 3 You share too much information in your profile.
The quality of what’s in your profile is more important than the quantity, said Doug Mitchell, a consultant and project manager at NPR in Washington, D.C.
“Either people don’t put anything out there, or they put too much” that no one will read, he said.
Also, be wary of connecting your Twitter or Facebook posts to your LinkedIn account.
Someone looking at your LinkedIn account doesn’t need to know that you’ve “checked in” to Denny’s or see the Instagram of your Grand Slam breakfast, said Sarah Bass, branch manager of Robert Half Technology & The Creative Group in Cleveland.
“People need to be mindful of how they’re sharing info” and understand how LinkedIn differs from other social media sites.
Also, if you don’t list the year you graduated from college, human resources might assume you’re older than you are.
No. 4 You’re not picky enough about whom you connect with.
Don’t accept invitations from just anyone, because the people in your network, as well as those who view your profile, will think that you know this person.
“I only connect to people who are part of my ‘trusted network,’. . . where I have some sort of relationship and can attest to their capabilities – and most importantly, they can attest to mine,” said marketing consultant Bob Coppenhaver, owner and chief marketing officer of 5P Marketing in Bainbridge Township.
“As a rule I will only connect if I have spent some quality time with them (or am about to spend some quality time with them) so I can better understand how we can truly help each other.”
No. 5 Your invitations to connect are too vague.
Don’t use the default language “I’d like to add you to my professional network.” Or say you’re reaching out as a “friend” when you’re not, Bass said.
Would you rather accept something that says “I’d like to add you to my network,” or “I so enjoyed our conversation after your speech at The City Club of Cleveland that I’d like to follow up and be professionally connected to you on LinkedIn”?
No. 6 You’re asking the wrong people to recommend you.
Don’t ask for LinkedIn endorsements from people who don’t know you very well, Mitchell said.
He refuses to write recommendations for people whom he’s only shaken hands with, those who contact him only when they need something, or those whom he hears are not the same person to his face as they are behind his back.
Mars says that no matter how many recommendations you have, you should “Post no more than seven; (because) no one will read more than that!”
No. 7 You don’t update your profile often enough.
If you’re not religiously updating profile with new information, new connections you’ve made, or sharing an “update,” you will not appear on your connections’ home page when they log in, Coppenhaver said.
“In this data prolific time we all live in, if you are not ‘top of mind,’ you are probably lost.”
No. 8 You don’t realize how many people are seeing your page.
“Every single HR professional and recruiter is checking you out on all the social media — even if they say they’re not or that corporate policy is not to,” said Laurie Mitchell, owner of Laurie Mitchell Marketing & Communications Executive Search.
She said job-hunters should never post whom they’re interviewing with because companies dislike having competitors and other job candidates know who they’re talking to.
No. 9 You don’t bother to learn about LinkedIn until you need it to find a new job or start a new business venture.
“Frantically trying to build your network after you’ve lost your job does not ring true with the people you are wishing to network with, and you come off as having ulterior motives,” Coppenhaver said.
So, now that you have your new-and-improved LinkedIn profile with a decent number of connections, is it ever appropriate to de-Link from somebody?
“If you’ve had some kind of professional falling out with somebody and maybe you don’t want to be associated with them anymore,” disconnecting with them denies that person access to your information or network, Bass said.
LinkedIn does not notify the person that she was pruned from your network.
Coppenhaver said he has severed ties with people after realizing he should never have connected with in the first place.
“People do it for Christmas card lists. Why wouldn’t you also do it for your LinkedIn network?”
Source: Cleveland.com