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- 2. We all want to stand out from the crowd and be noticed. It is imperative that you stand out on Linkedin to be successful, but you want to stand out in the RIGHT way. Here is a list of mistakes that most people make on their Linkedin profile. You will want to avoid these things to be a true All Star on Linkedin. Linkedin gives you a massive opportunity to get targeted leads, drive traf- fic to your website, make sales, build a highly successful mailing list and make huge profits. And the Linkedin platform is free to use. Linkedin can be a major business tool to increase your income if you use it properly. Don’t let easy to correct mistakes keep you from being successful on Linkedin.
- 3. Mistake 1 No profile photo is a no-no. Mistake 2 No attention grabbing headline. Mistake 3 No top keywords in your headline. Mistake 4 Writing in the third person in your profile. Mistake 5 Speaking like a boring professor. Mistake 6 Talking too much about yourself. Mistake 7 Trying to ride on your company’s coat tails. Mistake 8 Describing yourself with empty buzzwords. Mistake 9 Not having recommendations or having lame recommendations. Mistake 10 Leaving your Linkedin summary blank. Mistake 11 Not having a powerful call to action in your profile. Mistake 12 Spelling mistakes. Mistake 13 No vanity url. Mistake 14 Not using Linkedin’s skills. Mistake 15 Summary of Benefits. Mistake 16 Experience…Lead by Example.
- 4. People feel that they don’t need to put their face out there or get lazy about getting a decent photo taken. You will lose 80 to 90% of your potential viewers without a profile photo. People remember faces and if your profile doesn’t have one, it certainly won’t stand out. Please don’t use silly or group pho- tos. And having no photo at all on your profile is even worse. You should use a headshot of yourself in a profes- sional manner. If you can see your elbows in the photo, you need to have your photo cropped. Your profile photo shows up on all searches and it will show up smaller in those instances. If the photo is taken from too much of a distance, it will not work. Look professional and dress appropriately for your field in your profile photo. A picture is worth a thousand words. Be professional on a business network.
- 5. People will go right by your Linkedin profile if you don’t have a headline that reaches out and grabs them. Your photo and your headline show up on all Linkedin searches and the headline is your first chance to get your readers attention. You need to make your headline count. Your headline should make your reader want to immediately click on your profile and read more about you. Don’t just put your boring job title here and think that people will head straight to your pro- file. This is a common mistake, but one that de- serves your attention. Tell the reader what you do without just using industry jargon keywords and boring fluff. Tell them what you can do for them in phrases. The headline is your first chance to get your readers attention. Make sure that your headline reaches out and grabs them.
- 6. Remember, Linkedin is a search engine. When writing your headline you should use your target keywords start- ing with the most important and the rest in descending order. If you don’t, you won’t be found on relevant searches. However, there is a way to do this with good copywriting so that you don’t sound like a boring, self- centered individual that no one will want to connect with. You need to think of your best keywords from your po- tential target market’s point of view. What does your tar- get market care about? For example, if you are a cancer doctor, your potential patients don’t care how many years you have served on the hospital medical board. What they care about is what you can do to help them in their time of need. Consider keyword phrases like this: Oncology Doctor with 25 Years Experience | Caring Can- cer Patient Follow-Up |Latest Cancer Treatments Avail- able |Oncology Disability Claims Specialists. The headline gives you the opinion that this is an experienced doctor who keeps up on the latest technology and cares about his patients. Make your Linkedin profile headline key- word rich but do so in a meaningful way that will grab their at- tention.
- 7. Most boring resumes are written in the third person. And while the third person is the most pop- ular way to write in fiction books, it doesn’t work for your Linkedin profile. Writing in the 3rd person is talking about yourself as if you were talking about someone else. This is confusing and often comes across as vain or egotistical. After all, Linkedin is still a social network; it is just geared to business minded people. They would much rather hear about your benefits and solutions to their problems directly from you. That’s right, they want to hear from you, not have you talk at them like you are better than them. Just stick to using “I” and you will do fine. Strategically write your Linkedin profile to draw in your target audi- ence. You can do this by writ- ing in the first person.
- 8. The point of reeling in your readers is to entice them with your words and compel them to read more. If you speak over their heads with boring business jargon you are sure to lose them quickly. You want your target market to remember you, but if you fill your profile with boring fluff you are actu- ally creating the opposite…an utterly forgettable profile. You need to leave your readers with a mental pic- ture of you and make them want to reach out and contact you. Who cares that you are an experienced senior sales engineer who specializes in lead ori- ented goals? However, if you let your prospects know that you are a Linkedin marketer who can teach them to pull in highly targeted leads every day, like clockwork…well, I think you might find quite a bit more interest in your talents. Speak in a language your target market can understand and relate to.
- 9. People don’t want to know your personal history from first grade on. What they really want to know is what you can do for them. You need to tell your reader about the benefits and results you can de- liver. Most people think that the Linkedin profile is supposed to be “all about themselves” and is a place to tell all of their accomplishments. The truth is, people just don’t care about every- thing you have done. What they do care about is what you can do for them or how you can help them. Unless you can show them why you might be useful to them, you are not going to attract their at- tention. As an example, people don’t care about the prestigious schools you have attended nor do they care that you passed the CPA exam on the first try. Here is what they care about: Certified Tax Account Who Can Save You Boatloads of Money on Your Tax Returns. Linkedin users want to know what you can do for them. Be sure you spell that out.
- 10. If your company’s reputation is great, that helps; but tells your reader what you did to make the com- pany even better. Trying to make yourself sound im- portant because of the companies that you work for won’t automatically make you popular. While everyone knows that the Fortune 500 com- panies are great ones to be employed by you will gain their respect. Let your potential prospects know your contributions to the company, how that applies to your target market AND what you can do for your prospects. The company doesn’t make the man great, the man makes the company great. Don’t try to ride on your company’s rep- utation. Let the people in your industry know what you have done for the company and how that can help them.
- 11. Using phrases like “team player” and “great com- munication skills” is a waste of precious Linkedin space. These are all hype words that mean ab- solutely nothing to your reader. They also won’t get you very far in searches. Who is going to search for phrases like “great team player”, “hard worker” and “goal oriented”? Those are a given as who would want to hire or net- work with someone who is a horrible worker, doesn’t get along with anyone, works at a slow pace and never meets quotas or goals? You should use descriptive and meaningful keywords while letting your prospect know what it is you do. Use meaning- ful and descriptive keywords to describe what you do.
- 12. On Linkedin, recommendations are testimonials of your skills, achievements and overall credibility. Get these from people above your position and they will go a long way in supporting your value. The best and easiest way to get recommendations is to give recommendations. Ask those people who you would like a recommendation from if they would be kind enough to write a recommendation for you. Another good way to do this is to write a sample recommendation about yourself and send it to the prospect. Let them know they are welcome to use the recommendation or write their own. This way they don’t have to do the work if they don’t want to. Never use the standard recommendation email that is set up as a default. ALWAYS customize this request. Be sure to ask for recommen- dation from the individuals that you would like to have recom- mended you. Offer to recip- rocate.
- 13. I have seen this time and time again and have to scratch my head. The Linkedin summary allows you to sum up the most important things you want to tell your reader and puts your message right out there. Linkedin allows you 2000 characters to tell the world what you do and how you can benefit your target market. If you are going to skip this, you might as well not be on Linkedin! Use the summary space to your full advantage and let your readers know what is in it for them. Let them know what you do, how that is relevant to your target market and specifically what you can do for them. Be sure to end your summary with a great call to action. Do not leave the summary blank. This is prime real estate to reach out and grab your target market.
- 14. Tell your reader what you would like them to do. You see it time and time again where people will pitch their product and services but never ask for the sale. There is an old saying that still rings true today. “If you don’t ask, you won’t receive.” People need to be lead by example and you need to spell out very clearly what action you would like them to take next. Lead them to your website, your opt in form or where ever you would like to collect some informa- tion from them. For example, “To get my free list of Mistakes that KILL a Linkedin Profile, click here.” Or “Email me today at yourname@yourcompany.com for a free sample of my work.” If you leave out a call to action in your profile, you are leaving a ton of money on the table.
- 15. Please be sure to proofread your profile, have an intelligent friend or co-worker proofread your pro- file and copy and paste your sections into an editor like Microsoft Word and do a spelling and a gram- mar check. You know the saying…check, check and then double check. Nothing will steal away your credibility faster than someone who doesn’t have correct spelling and grammar in this day and age. With online editors, spell check, grammar correc- tors and other online tools, there is simply no excuse for poor grammar or blatant spelling mistakes. Take the extra few minutes to make sure things are right before publishing them for the world to see. Correct spelling and grammar go a long way to portray that you are a true professional. Take the time to proofread your work.
- 16. Be sure to customize your Linkedin url for brand- ing and clarity. Use your name or some form of it so that it is easy for people to remember when you use it in your email signature and on professional letters and documents. Linkedin allows you to have a van- ity url so that it is easy to send potential prospects directly to your profile. Be sure to take the extra step to get your vanity url and be sure to use it on all your business corre- spondence. Provide a link back to your profile whenever possible to make it very easy to send peo- ple from your target market directly to your profile. But when that is not possible, it is always best to have an easy to remember, concise url to share with them. Make it easy to share your Linkedin profile with others by getting a vanity url.
- 17. Linkedin allows you to add 50 skills to the “Skills and Endorsements” section. While I don’t recom- mend that you fill in all 50 as that would be pretty tough, I certainly suggest that you take the time to sit down and make a list of at least 20 skills that you possess. When adding skills to your profile, you need to start typing your keyword and then go with the form of the word that Linkedin suggests in the drop- down box. This will get you higher rankings as Linkedin knows what keywords people search for the most. If you are having trouble coming up with skills, go to Linkedin and search for others in your industry and take a look at their skills. Be sure to en- dorse the people you know on their skills and ask them to return the favor. Use Linkedin skills so that Linkedin will suggest connec- tions with other people in your industry and so that those key- words will be- come a part of your profile on Linkedin search.
- 18. People don’t really want to know what you have done since grade school. What they really want to know is what you can do to help them. So, in your summary be sure to mention the problems that you can solve for your target market and how you can solve them. Speak to your reader and not at them. Tell them who your clients are and don’t forget to tell them how your product or services can help them. So many people write about what they do but never explain the solution to the problem and how it ap- plies to your potential market. Talk about the results that you can give them. You need to create a want or a desire in your target market. Get them engaged and end with a call to action. People are interested in RESULTS. Show them the solution to their problem and how they can get results.
- 19. In the experience section of your profile you have a chance to declare yourself as the expert in your field. Don’t just list every job position you have ever had and let it read like an outdated resume. List each job position and then tell your readers what you did for others in that position. Tell them what results you achieved in each position and how that can help your potential target market. By telling your readers how you solved problems in your past job experiences and how you can help them, it will lend credibility to you and give them confidence that you are the one that can help them. Declare yourself an expert in your field and lead by example.