LinkedIn is a fantastic place for professionals to connect – especially in the age of social distancing. It’s the perfect opportunity for you to make new business connections and showcase your work.
Building your brand on LinkedIn can be difficult. It’s the country’s biggest networking platform – you want people in your industry to notice you. The problem is: how are you going to get noticed… and will it be for the right reasons?
Everyone knows everyone in Waterford – you make the wrong impression and your reputation can take a serious hit. Many businesses don’t set up their LinkedIn profile correctly, or leave it unfinished, which reflects poorly on both you and your business (and that’s not just a Waterford thing – from Tramore to Texas, bad LinkedIn profiles are everywhere).
So, to help you make a good first impression on LinkedIn and promote your business online, we’ve listed the 5 most common mistakes you should avoid on your LinkedIn account.
Using unprofessional photos
LinkedIn is a professional platform – so you want to give off a good impression to your potential clients and connections.
A photo of you on holiday in the Mediterranean or a selfie from your last night out down the pub isn’t an appropriate look for your LinkedIn profile.
Try to take a professional-looking photo, preferably from the shoulders up with a blank background behind you. Make sure the photo you upload is high-quality and isn’t blurred or out of focus.
Don’t leave your profile photo blank either. Not having a profile picture on your LinkedIn account can make it seem like you have something to hide. It can also make you come across as a little bit creepy, untrustworthy, and unprofessional. People love to put a face to a name.
Forgetting to link to your other platforms
A lot of people don’t realize that you can actually link up to 3 other platforms in the website section of your LinkedIn account. You could link to your company’s website, Facebook page, and Instagram profile for instance.
Connecting your other platforms to your LinkedIn account is really beneficial. It allows potential clients to check your business out without having to search for you on Google. They can simply click your links, check out your website or social media, and decide whether they want to work with you or not.
With this in mind, you’ll want to make sure that your social media, your blog, and your website are up to date with the latest information about your company. There isn’t any point in linking to an outdated site or a blog that hasn’t been used in a couple of years.
Having an incomplete profile
If you want to get noticed on LinkedIn then it’s necessary to complete your entire profile. LinkedIn uses a ‘wizard’ which shows you what areas of your profile you haven’t completed. This makes it easy to see whether you need to add more information or not.
The most important parts of your profile are:
- Your headline
- Your summary
- Your experience
- Your skills & expertise
Make sure that all these areas of your LinkedIn profile are carefully put together and contain the most necessary (and interesting) pieces of information.
All of these sections are searchable on Google, so be sure to include relevant keywords too. If you want to be found on Google, optimise your LinkedIn profile for what your potential clients are searching for.
Spamming people’s inboxes
Nobody likes spam, so don’t do it. Spam is not only annoying for the receiver but it’ll also make you seem unprofessional and desperate. Copying and pasting the same message to every prospect you see isn’t going to do you any favours.
Remember that just because you’ve connected with somebody on LinkedIn doesn’t mean you can bombard them with messages. Don’t continuously ask them to check out your website or your company page. They’ll find it off putting and incredibly spammy.
Instead, position yourself in a way, so they see your company as beneficial. Let them see that what you’re offering them can help solve their problems. Read up on each of your connections carefully and see what you can do to help improve their lives. Or you know, engage in a bit of everyday conversation – it’s a breath of fresh air on a platform where most people just send sales pitches.
Show your potential connections your value as a company by posting relevant and high-quality content. The more you post valuable information the more you’ll be seen as an expert in your niche.
It’s all about two-way relationships on LinkedIn. They need to know what they’re getting out of the relationship with you and how it benefits them.
Connecting with everybody
You’ve got 500 friends on Facebook but you probably only really know about 10% of them (maybe even less). The same thing often happens on LinkedIn. You go out of your way to make as many connections as you possibly can only for a small handful to be any good to you.
Sure, building up a large network of people might seem like a good idea, but what’s the point in connecting with hundreds of people that aren’t your target market – they’re never going to buy from you.
Think quality over quantity. If you have hundreds of connections that don’t even blink an eye when you post content then they’re not really much help to your business. Whereas if you have twenty high-quality connections that engage with what you’re posting, they’re more likely to convert into paying clients.
The more interested parties you get, the more they’ll share your work with like-minded people. This will lead you to have more, high-quality connections on LinkedIn – and hopefully some potential leads.
At Whelan Web Design, we love helping local Waterford businesses grow their brand and their presence online. If you’d like to talk about how to improve your company’s online marketing efforts (including how to use LinkedIn properly), get in touch with our team today.
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