Top 20 Mistakes made using LinkedIn as a Business Tool

Top 20 Mistakes made using LinkedIn as a business tool 

There are many mistakes we make in life, career and business. I know I’ve made them all. I’ve made plenty using LinkedIn as well.

However, if only someone would have pointed out some of my mistakes earlier, maybe I could have created even more success along the way.

This article will be short and highly focused to the Top 20 Mistakes people make using LinkedIn based on the research I’ve done in the past 12 years.

Read this list and rank yourself based on this (non-scientific) scoring system:

• <2 mistake – LinkedIn Professional
• 3-6 mistakes – Good LinkedIn User
• 7-10 mistakes – Average LinkedIn member
• 11-14 mistakes – Reluctant LinkedIn account holder
• 15-18 mistakes -LinkedIn seminar attendee who slept through most of the class
• 19-20 mistakes – Your boss told you to create an account. You checked that box years ago.

Here are the Top 20 Mistakes Made using LinkedIn as a business tool

1. Your Headline restates the Title given to you by the Human Resources Department with “at Company XYZ” hanging off the end. As in “Accounts Payable Specialist II at Paper Maker, Inc.”
2. You have a massive spelling error in your headline (Do a LinkedIn search for “Manger” you’ll see what I mean.)
3. You wrote your name in all lowercase, all UPPERCASE or with graphical characters.
4. You don’t have a LinkedIn Profile Picture. Having a Profile Picture shows you are approachable.
5. Your primary email address is the company you left 3 years ago. You’re making harder for the people you want to communicate with to get to you.
6. Your previous employer’s website is listed in your contact information. Now you’re confusing your viewers.
7. Your old phone number is listed in your contact information of your LinkedIn Profile.
8. Your Summary Statement is all about your previous employer. Imagine how many important people looked at your profile and moved on to the next profile.
9. You added your current employer to your LinkedIn Profile, but connected to the wrong LinkedIn Company Page.
10. Your previous work at a competitor company is a raving review for why they are the best widget maker ever. Really?
11. You have Rich media from your previous employers attached to your LinkedIn Profile. Really?
12. The only LinkedIn Posts you have written are about a previous career step.
13. You send out invitations to connect with your prospects and wait weeks to or you never follow up with them on LinkedIn.
14. You like LinkedIn posts about Fast Cars & Beautiful Women over and over and over again. But, you never engage on or share content relevant to your business.
15. You get into social media post arguments on LinkedIn because you feel you can, and fail to notice it’s public.
16. You created a LinkedIn Profile from a resume from 15 years ago and have never updated your profile.
17. You have ignored your invitations to connect and the LinkedIn messages for so long, it’s overwhelming so you keep ignoring them.
18. You’ve let your network choose your LinkedIn Skills and none of them are relevant to what you do today.
19. You’ve never visited your LinkedIn Settings page and are overwhelmed with emails from LinkedIn.
20. You are (or your boss is) paying for LinkedIn and you have not idea how to use the Premium Features.

    Bonus – You have never asked anyone for help with how to get real value from using LinkedIn as a business tool.

The Top 20 Mistakes Made using LinkedIn as a business tool is just the beginning of the many mistakes made.

How did you score yourself on this list of mistakes? I hope you scored well or at least found some mistakes you can correct to better position yourself on LinkedIn.

This is a list of some of the mistakes I’ve seen over the past few weeks. The point of this article is to draw your attention to the importance of Paying Serious Attention to what you are doing on LinkedIn.

If you want help with these issues, and on how to better use LinkedIn as a business tool, let’s talk – info@BurrissConsulting.com or 336-283-6121