LinkedIn etiquette mistakes could cost you business, money or a job.
If You’re Not On LinkedIn, You Should Be
Of course we teach and prefer face-to-face networking… but LinkedIn is vital to business professionals. In our Complete Professional training we often talk about how important a LinkedIn profile is as a support to modern business networking. That’s where prospective clients, employers, HR and contacts check you out.
The Business Etiquette Expert Was Blowing His Image
LinkedIn has some unwritten etiquette rules that most of us break without even knowing it. You could unwittingly be ruining your personal brand. I was. Yes, moi. The Canadian business etiquette expert and image consultant was unknowingly committing LinkedIn faux pas.
Advice to Keep Your Image Safe
I recently came across a great article by Amber Mac in The Fast Company Newsletter entitled The Three LinkedIn Etiquette Rules You Should Never Break. A real eye-opener. (I was ignoring tip #1)
Here are the three top tips to help you really shine making connections on LinkedIn:
- Tip #1 Personalize – don’t use LinkedIn’s auto generated templates (you know you’ve received and sent these, it’s like receiving a generic birthday greeting from your dentist)
- Tip #2 It’s not Facebook – don’t push your social updates to your LinkedIn status (your drinking and dating exploits won’t help your professional image)
- Tip #3 Solicitations – don’t ask for LinkedIn endorsements or connections to people you don’t know (this happens all the time, don’t people know it makes them look bad)
Take This Advice to Heart
Complete professionals don’t do everything 100 percent perfectly but they do 100 little things 1 or 2 percent better than everyone else and they do it consistently. These tips are easy to implement and they will set your apart from the crowd… in a good way. Happy LinkedIn-ing.