LinkedIn is a social media platform designed for professional networking. It’s a great place to generate quality leads for your business, build your uncontestable authority as the industry leader in your niche and grow your business.
But what happens when your profile is filled with mistakes that are preventing people from taking you seriously?
You may be making mistakes that are costing you more than just time and effort.
I have compiled some of the most common mistakes I see all too often, so take a look at the list before it’s too late!
Is your profile set up for success on the platform?
Not having a professional profile image
Your profile picture is a key element of your LinkedIn presence, and your effectiveness to open doors and draw opportunities. LinkedIn research shows that just having a picture makes your profile 14 times more likely to be viewed by others.
In 2022 if you are still using images that are blurry, low quality, not professional, or the images don’t fit the narrative you are projecting on the rest of your profile, then from the get-go, you risk turning away clients, partners, and any potential growth you are chasing for your business. Make sure to use a professional headshot that is high resolution and matches your brand.
Not using a cover photo
Not utilising a cover photo or posting a cover photo that is irrelevant to your business is a big mistake and a missed opportunity to advertise your business. Your cover photo is prime real estate on your profile so make sure you’re using it to create something that is both professional and informative, adding to your potential clients’ understanding of who you are and what you do.
Grammatical mistakes and typos
Keeping in line with being professional and creating that perception for anyone landing on your profile, one of the easiest ways to lose all credibility is to have a profile that has numerous grammatical errors. Check everything, make sure spelling mistakes are fixed, grammar is double-checked and your work makes sense.
A handy tip: You can use tools like Grammarly, to find those sneaky mistakes that you might otherwise skip over.
Your headline isn’t memorable or catchy enough
Don’t let your profile fall into the category of having a headline that is boring, and does not describe what you do, as it is not going to grab the attention of your target audience. Ask yourself the following questions:
- Does your headline communicate directly to your target group?
- Does it offer any benefit to your reader rather than just spelling out what you do?
- Does it have the power to make your readers curious, take action and know more about you?
- Does it have the right keywords to help you stand out in the searches of recruiters and potential clients?
A mistake many current members are making is they just add their most recent job title and expect this will provide them with countless opportunities. What members need to understand is they have an amazing opportunity to brand themselves with the 120 characters available.
An attractive, well-written headline with a good mix of keywords means that new connections, potential leads, or recruiters can easily find you in a matter of seconds and understand who you are or what you stand for.
Take a look at my profile headline, if you are still confused:
Adam Houlahan:
We help you achieve two important outcomes on LinkedIn! ⇰ Peerless Positioning in your industry ⇰A monthly flow of new business enquiries. If you’d like to know more, check out the video in my “FEATURED” section below.
You don’t have any recommendations or skills listed
LinkedIn makes it easy to showcase social proof in the form of recommendations and skills on your profile. Social proof is a great way to make a good impression and create that trusted branding within your community.
When people land on your profile and are deciding who they would like to do business with, they are often swayed by the decisions others have made, so the more recommendations you have, the better. Quality recommendations from current or past clients, colleagues and industry peers, who have written in detail about how your expertise helped them, are highly effective at boosting your reputation in your industry.
Pro Tip: Request, rather than demand. Look at collecting at least five recommendations from credible sources who can genuinely recommend you, your expertise and your skill set.
It’s natural to feel shy when you have to message someone and ask them for a recommendation. But what we tend to forget is many members have similar goals – to grow their network, get more profile views, likes, shares and stand out as an industry leader.
As long as you are polite – chances are you will get what you are looking for.
Sharing Content: These are some of the mistakes you should avoid:
When posting content anywhere the trick is to find that thin line between under and over-sharing, quality and consistency matter. Here are some of the mistakes to avoid:
- Don’t talk about yourself all the time, address things that are happening around you and in the world.
- Heavy and verbose content does not sell. As always, keep it simple and short!
- If you think you can get more engagement if you tag everyone you are following in every other post – you can’t, the algorithms will defeat you every time.
- Too many or random hashtags will kill your content. Use them wisely; three is a good number.
Make sure you are only sharing valuable and high-quality content that your network will like and be interested in hearing more of, use a mix of Status Posts, Native videos, Newsletters and Document posts to keep your content fresh and interesting.
Pro Tip: I’d suggest you post at least 3 times per week.
Not replying, engaging or personalising your interactions and connection requests
Not replying or taking your time to engage with your contacts is a bad idea, nothing makes a contact feel more insignificant than being ignored. It will usually lead to a contact losing their desire to build a relationship with you which should be your ultimate goal.
You can prevent this mistake by replying to the sender with a short message, letting them know you will get back to them shortly. It usually takes less than 15 minutes a day to maintain your LinkedIn network.
Pro tip 2: Make sure when replying or interacting you take the time to personalise the message, contacts can tell when you aren’t being genuine, copying and pasting a reply is going to come across as lazy, unprofessional, and disingenuous which won’t help you build a stronger network on LinkedIn.
P.S. Here are 5 ways we can help you accelerate your Lead Generation results:
1. Grab our free 4-Week LinkedIn Profile Optimisation Course
It’s the road map to positioning your profile in the top 5% of the 800+ million LinkedIn members – Click Here
2. Join our FREE LinkedIn Group and connect with entrepreneurs who are scaling too
It’s our Facebook community where smart entrepreneurs learn to get more leads and smart ways to scale using LinkedIn — Click Here
3. Take our FREE LinkedIn Productivity Assessment
Score your current presence and activity on LinkedIn against industry best practice benchmarks. Receive customised results instantly and as a BONUS you’ll get a FREE PDF download of Amazon’s best-selling book “Influencer” Click Here
4. Join our LinkedIn Inner Circle Solo Program Click Here for more details
5. Learn more about the four most effective conversion strategies for LinkedIn success
When we analysed the most successful conversion campaigns amongst these, we found there are four very specific strategies that deliver the most consistent results year after year. We call them ‘The Magic Four’. Take the Questionnaire now to assess your suitability Click Here