If you attend networking events or you give out your business card a lot, you may also be connecting with people on LinkedIn. Even if you’re not, they may be looking you up there to find out more about you.
LinkedIn is not just for people looking for work. It can become a place people look for validation of your professional life.
They may have questions about your background that they don’t want to ask or they may be looking into your background so they can find commonalities that will help them better connect with you when they see you next. Either way, if you have outdated or ineffective information out there, you’re not doing yourself any favors.
Change These Things on Your LinkedIn Profile Now
Your Summary
Read over it. Does it say what you do in plain language? Does it use keywords people would use to search for what it is you do? Is it brief? Go work on this now.
Your Picture
This is not a yearbook shot and a picture of you and your bestie doesn’t scream, “I’m serious about my business.” Find a flattering, close-up picture that people will recognize as you. It doesn’t have to be taken by a professional or airbrushed, but it should be identifiable as you and professional looking. LinkedIn is not the place for a “your toes in the sand” profile image.
Fakebooking
Okay, so this is not something you have to change but something you should stop doing. Yes, LinkedIn is about professional things but posting a picture of flowers that you got at work is not really the appropriate forum for that. LinkedIn is becoming Fakebook, where people with jobs are posting the same things that people do on Facebook.
Here’s what I saw today: pictures of what someone was eating at a business lunch, flowers delivered from a client “just because,” and someone with 10,000+ like and comments who couldn’t find a job.
Okay, so these things are all loosely business related but none of them will interest someone in doing business with you.
Even for those of us who are happily employed, maintaining a professional LinkedIn profile is essential to making a good impression. You don’t know when people will want to know more about you and seeing what you ate for lunch today, probably isn’t the impression you want to leave them with unless you’re in the restaurant business.
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