LinkedIn is an awesome social media tool to have when you own or are part of a business-to-business (B2B) company. It’s increasingly becoming one of the best platforms for social media marketing campaigns aside from the usual giants (Facebook and Twitter). It allows you to network better with the experts in your industry, increase sales and revenue, and find out more about employers if and when you’re job hunting.
What’s less great about LinkedIn is that some of its users still don’t know how to use this excellent social media platform to its full potential. Some of them have even made these giant no-no’s that you’d think would be obvious to not make, but not so to the people making them.
What are these “no-no’s” you ask? Well, first and foremost, it’s:
No-no 1: Failing to Fill in Your Profile
Who you are and what you represent to your industry is best seen by filling out everything in your profile. LinkedIn will usually prompt you to complete your profile by asking questions about yourself that can be done in a few clicks. If you don’t fill in these certain pieces of info, or “answers” as they are called on LinkedIn, you’ll have as much luck with connecting to others in your industry as a cat does with water:
- About yourself
- About your employment history
- Reviews
- Photos
What’s just as bad as not having any information about yourself is to not have anything about your company. The basic rule of having a visible NAP (name, address, and phone number) applies to LinkedIn as well as all social media platforms you’re using in your online marketing campaign. Take some time out of your day to fill in this part if you haven’t already, and then work on your profile a little bit each day so that it’s filled out and beneficial to everyone viewing it—including yourself.
No-no 2: Inappropriate Photos
We don’t understand why, but some people treat LinkedIn as if it’s Facebook, i.e. they treat it casually and not professionally. Whether you like social media or not, one thing is clear: people tend to forget that it’s not only one person who can see what they’ve posted, including photos. They don’t realize that EVERYONE can publicly view what they’ve posted. Yet there are some people posting photos considered inappropriate on LinkedIn regardless.
We get it, you love your staff and you love celebrating with them, but posting a photo of your beer chugging ability is going to be the last party trick your connections look for—especially on LinkedIn.
No-no 3: Having No Content
Not having content such as blog posts from your website, status updates, etc. is just as detrimental to your LinkedIn profile as having no information about yourself. Some of the biggest companies promote their industry on LinkedIn by sharing and posting content. Some of this content is their own, while the rest are from other companies—all who know how to best contribute to a conversation.
It may seem overkill to post your blog content to Facebook and Twitter and LinkedIn, but the thing is, your audience may vary across all of these platforms, so somebody may be missing out on what you have to say. Whether the conversation is about the latest development in technology or a new trend in the real estate market, everyone’s pitching in—so why not join them by creating and posting your own thoughts?
No-no 4: Failing to Optimize Your Profile
Yep, SEO (search engine optimization) applies to LinkedIn just as it does your website. It only takes a few minutes to apply any relevant keywords and links to both your company profile and blog content. You can also add custom anchor text to assist you with boosting your links (check out Hubspot’s advice on the subject for more info).
A lack of SEO is bad, but it’s not nearly as big of a no-no as this last one:
No-no 5: Having No Idea How to Use LinkedIn
By this we mean you are trying to make connections only to send out a sales pitch to the people you just connected with. We understand LinkedIn is great for increasing sales and revenue, but that doesn’t mean the first thing you should say to someone is “I’m Blah de blah, would you be interested in using my service even though this is the first time I’ve ever contacted you?”
Using LinkedIn is kind of like setting yourself up for a job interview; in other words, a great first impression is very important whenever you try to connect with others within its platform. If you don’t know who you’re contacting in the first place, or if you have a lot of connections but don’t contribute to their conversation, you’re not using LinkedIn properly in the first place.
Now that you know about these big no-no’s, do you feel more confident in getting your profile up and going, or do you feel like you need more advice? If you answered “yes” to the second part of that question, get in touch with us at V3 Media. Whether it’s about rejuvenating your web design, web development for a new website, or social media marketing assistance, we’re always up for a chat at no cost to you!