LinkedIn is the most widely used social media platform for professional engagement. Individuals, consultants, headhunters and recruiters converge on the platform to seek out candidates, opportunities and productive business engagements.
Recruitment and career consultants agree that an active networking and contact with a hiring manager or a business leader at an opportune time can lead to career or business opportunities. While you look to benefit professionally and personally from LinkedIn, here are top 10 faux-paux to avoid
- Avoid Typo and Grammatical errors
Typos and grammatical errors in your profile reflect sloppiness. Hiring managers are bound to wonder, “Can I depend on this guy professionally if he doesn’t care to have a presentable profile?”
Your LinkedIn profile says a lot about you. Make sure you proofread your profile and spell-check messages you send out to your connections.
- Don’t expect too much
It is worth remembering that engagement in a social media platform is purely voluntary and requires time and energy. Others on the forum don’t owe you their time, and don’t need to respond to your (or others) queries in a timely way. Don’t feel upset if your queries aren’t generating responses.
You can benefit from such engagements by connecting with people and groups that share your professional interests. If you are seen as a professional in a group who periodically contributes, comments and responds, you are more likely to get your questions answered.
- Don’t come across as being helpless or needy
You should always project a little confidence while engaging with peers on LinkedIn. It may be a bit hard to project confidence if you are desperately looking for a job, but keep in mind desperation can be off-putting to others.
You should be respectful of other’s time and constraints. As an example, you shouldn’t continue to message a recruiter or hiring manager if you don’t get a response to your first message.
- Don’t spam
Do you like to respond to an unwanted mail or message from a distant connection or a stranger? Probably not. How do you react to a hard-sell message? You are probably put-off by it.
Busy professionals login to Linkedin hoping to learn something new and to gain professional updates. They are likely to ‘block’ messages from people who spam them regularly. By spamming and sending unwanted messages to your connections, you are likely to be ignored even if your message is relevant to them.
- Don’t be an obvious sycophant
Do you regularly ‘Like’ and comment only on your boss’s posts and nobody else’s? Your boss may occasionally prophesize a few golden words of wisdom, that may indeed be worth sharing with the world. However, you don’t necessarily have to ‘like’ his comments on a topic you have no interest or expertise in.
While your boss may feel flattered by your cyber-troll, remember that your connections who get your updates on LinkedIn can easily see through this pattern.
- Don’t troll
Linkedin makes it easy to join groups, send connection invites and to like a comment on topics across the platform. You should try and refrain from commenting on all posts with links or references to your products and services. Those who do this all the time look desperate.
- Don’t be disrespectful
Social media platforms make it easy to voice one’s opinions and comments, or even share dissenting views. It is perfectly okay to disagree with an idea or proposal, but remember to do it professionally.
- Refrain away from topics that you wouldn’t discuss at work
There are topics like politics, religion or other personal affairs that you will probably refrain from discussing at work; unless your business happens to be that of political lobbying or servicing religious institutions. So why would you start discussing those on LinkedIn?
- Try not to be overly boastful
Some people love to share every detail of every single atta-boy, accolade or badges they receive online or offline. They do this in the spirit of sharing in social media to positively showcase one’s achievements. Nothing wrong here. Now flip this as a receiver: Many of us have 500+ connections. If every one of our connections shares an accolade or atta-boy every week that begins to appear in your notification; and you get another notification every time someone comments on it.
Every time you have an urge to share an attaboy your received, it may be worth stopping for a second to reflect: is it really worth sharing or just savoring.
- Try not to get too personal
Imagine you are at a workshop or trade conference. You probably don’t get personal with prospects, clients and colleagues you meet there. Why should it be any different for your interactions on LinkedIn?
LinkedIn is a powerful tool for personal and professional branding, and it is worth keeping in mind your LinkedIn profile is an extension of your professional persona. By all means continue to post comments, articles and viewpoints as you would in a professional setting. And feel free to share your political beliefs, vacation shots, and breakfast choices on other social media platforms.
Guest post by Mohan K. The author is a technology executive and Enterprise Architect. He regularly contributes to myDigitalStartup.org
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