I thought about writing this post last night when I received a request to connect on LinkedIn. For those who don't know what LinkedIn is, it's a social media site primarily for B2B. Now if you are a Plumber or HVAC contractor serving the B2C market don't let that scare you away. It's a great place to network and connect with very specific business leaders that could result is business in different places. Upon receiving this connection I logged on only to see that the user did not have a photo representing themselves, just the common grey head siloette that LinkedIn supplies. My only thought was to decline the invitation, and the reality is that most people living in the world of social media are going to react the same way. After all who is this person? Are they real or just some spammer?
Funny thing is I see this quite often on social sites like LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter and the reality is that people will not want to connect with you if you don't want to reveal a photo of yourself using these channels. It's a social media site, people connect with people. You have to be willing to show who you are in order to connect with others.
Here are the top 7 mistakes made on LinkedIn that you should avoid
- Not including a professional head shot of yourself
People connect with other people and they do business with people they know, like and trust. - Not using LinkedIn because you think it only serves a direct B2B industry
If you don't serve a B2B market, LinkedIn is still a powerful tool. It allows you to connect with leaders in different industries. This is a great place to establish yourself as a leader in your industry. Once you have established that many opportunities come your way. - Not filling out your profile 100%
Your profile is a great tool to tell everyone all about you. Who you are, what you do, where you have been and where you are going. Fill in as much information as possible and establish yourself as the expert. - Connecting with people you don't know
For instance I don't connect with anyone on LinkedIn unless I have met them in person or had more than one connection with them via telephone or email. That makes my network smaller but stronger. See LinkedIn was designed for introductions, it's based on 6 degrees of separation, someone you know, knows someone you would like an introduction to. Lets say I want to meet the marketing director of a large national plumbing company. (www.contentbeta.com) If I just pick up the telephone and call them it's a cold call and will more than likely not get a positive result. But if I search them on LinkedIn it will tell me if someone down the line in my network knows them, keep in mind it could be a connection of mine is connected with them or a connection of theirs knows them or even deeper down the pyramid. This is why it's so important to know the people you connect with. I once wanted to make a connection and had one line to it, unfortunately when I asked my contact for the introduction he did not know them because he just randomly connected with everybody. This happens a lot in social media, people pay far to much attention to quantity when there is much better opportunity in quality. This is one of the biggest faults of LinkedIn, the value of the network is not as valuable as it should be. - Mixing both personal and business
I'm a believer in showing your personal side in your business, so when I when I say don't mix business with your personal life I simply mean avoid posting photos of yourself at happy hour or kicking back on a weekend fishing trip. - Over posting
Over posters are annoying, they are the type that sends 5 or more posts a day to site content they didn't write. Don't get me wrong I appreciate sharing good info but when its starts hogging my news feed with info I can get from my RSS feed you are adding little value to my life. I want to connect with leaders and experts, people who share their own knowledge and engage on the topics with others. - Talking not listening
This is a common problem on any social network, so many people talk but never listen or worse yet, engage. Stop trying to sell everyone and start trying to help when you can.
