Reterdeen Staff
LinkedIn is the world’s foremost professional social networking platform. The platform has millions of members in all professional fields and is used mainly by business people and companies for networking and recruiting the best staff.
It is important to have a great LinkedIn profile as a business person looking to make it in your selected field. Your profile is the first impression you make on potential employers or business partners or clients. Making a great first impression is critical to your success in building business relationships, and that is one of the primary functions of LinkedIn.
In order to make a good first impression on people and companies that come across your LinkedIn profile, here are 8 mistakes you should avoid.
- Dull or non-descriptive headline
This is one of the gravest mistakes you can make on LinkedIn. Your LinkedIn headline is the most important part of your profile, because it’s the first thing that anybody will see when they check your profile along with your name and profile photo.
Your headline is basically the reason why a viewer will choose to click on your profile, or move onto someone else.
- Using Nicknames
Yeah, this should even go without a saying. Please, always use only your real name in the name field on LinkedIn. This will help you make a good first impression on the platform. There is no need to add personal information, like an email address, nickname or a phone number, and avoid using symbols, numbers or special characters too.
- Unprofessional profile photo
Disclaimer: LinkedIn is not Facebook. Avoid using unserious photos. On a professional platform like LinkedIn, your picture should be one in which you appear professionally dressed against a non-distracting background.
- No cover image
Your cover photo is a major LinkedIn requirement, and it’s a mistake to leave it blank or use a photo that doesn’t portray you professionally as your cover picture.
- Blank experience or Summary
Leaving your summary section blank will stop you from getting the opportunity to tell your profile viewers about yourself, your expertise and your clientele.
As well as leaving your current experience section blank too.
- No recommendations or skills
Always keep in mind that having good recommendations can help you make a great first impression. A lot of people forget that aspect of LinkedIn. However, it is a huge mistake to not have a single recommendation or skill on your profile.
- No personal URL
By default, LinkedIn will automatically create a URL for you when you create a profile. Using this random URL, and not setting up a personal URL with your name, is a mistake.
- No reply or engagement
Ignoring messages, or taking too long to reply to messages, connection requests and other forms of engagement on your LinkedIn is a big mistake.
I know that everyone makes mistakes but with these few tips, you can avoid making some basic mistakes on LinkedIn and build a solid profile/network for yourself.
Good Luck!
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