7 Things Everyone Should Avoid Including on Their LinkedIn Profile

A solid LinkedIn profile is a thing of wonder. It can help you get leads, network with the top of the food-chain people and create a longer list of networks than you would naturally would. Networking is key when it comes to expanding your business and maintaining mastery over your domain.

If you want to keep up with the best, you need to ensure that you have the right set of information on your profile. LinkedIn has become one of the most popular B2B websites in recent memory, with millions of users on its platform. When it comes to power-users it’s a different ball game altogether.

A great LinkedIn profile can send the right message to your target audience. When you’re trying too hard or sharing too much, you can run the risk of spreading yourself too thin. This also happens when you’re in a zone where you aren’t able to make too many connections and you’re asking yourself why you’re unable to make new ones. Here’s a quick checklist of things that you need to avoid putting on your LinkedIn profile –

#1 Emojis & Special Characters – Some people try to become fancy on the website. They add check marks, stars and trophy symbols to trick people into thinking that they’re superstars on the platform. LinkedIn does no such thing. It’s a highly professional social network that relies on quality connections instead of gamification or hacks.

It relies on high-profile influencers to share quality insights and information so that their followers and connections can make the best decisions in their businesses. It's also a place where people get to know each other, and the first impression made from an emoji-filled name is a bad one. Nobody respects a person with emojis on their name or descriptors.

#2 Obscure titles – Sometimes people add chief happiness officer instead of writing HR head or put ‘innovation expert’ instead of C++ coder. They try to be extra on their profiles when they should really dial it all back. When you try too hard on the platform, it can backfire in many ways than one. For starters, your company may spot what you’re doing and report it to your managers.

Since you’re representing them online, you need to follow their guidelines to be able to change the name of the designation that you were assigned. Nobody wants to go through that humiliation and shame, making this tactic a wasteful one in more ways than one.

#3 Long descriptions – If you’ve copy pasted your entire resume, word for word, on your description page then you’ve made a classic error of not being platform-centric. This is a great way to detract any potential connectors of making a new relationship with you, as they would never read the whole story-book of a description that you’ve shared.

You need to keep things tight and ensure that the reader gets bullet points and keywords instead of reading through long lines of text without breaks. In today’s day and age, nobody has time to read through someone’s boring titles and designations. It helps to get a better idea if its represented pictorially or through video.

#4 Adding internships - You don’t want to add internship work if it wasn’t significant. This is a rookie mistake that a lot of the younger entrepreneurs make, in order to make their profile stand out. This makes you appear younger than you are, and you don’t add any value to the reader who’s scanning for a purpose. If you interned at UNESCO or a global charity – sure, that’s a good one to add.

But if you were a low-level accountant at a mom and pop store, you should keep that one out. People might think that you considered that accomplishment worthy of being displayed to the world.

#5 Sharing inappropriate content – Like all social media networks, LinkedIn too gets political and dark sometimes. This is when the positive side of LinkedIn turns over and the negative side of people gets on full-display. Anything to get attention, likes or comments, and people start to share inappropriate content and articles to start mini-movements.

This is important if you’re personally affected by it or want to support a cause, but if you’re posting for likes – it becomes all too transparent. Sharing inappropriate content is the worst sin that you can commit when it comes to LinkedIn. People come to check out what’s new in the industry and not to listen to your opinions on unrelated subjects. Many might even find it off-putting and disconnect with you in exchange. Remember to follow a guideline when posting on LinkedIn and don’t make it a place where you spam. Make organic connections instead.

#6 Tagging your contacts on a post – This is a sales tactic that becomes detrimental after a while. IF you post something about yourself or a company, and you tag the people that you want to influence on the post itself – it sends the wrong message. People will feel offended instead. They don’t want to be tagged in with a bunch of strangers to read a post about your company. They want to read something interesting, engaging and real. They don’t want to start a conversation on the basis of a tag-for-tag kind of program.

#7 Being too personal – When you make your profile and you start posting content, you shouldn’t become too personal in your posts. Its ok to be personal when posting about something you love but sharing intimate details about your life is a no-no. LinkedIn is a platform for professionals to network, and it quickly becomes something totally different. It diverges its attention and becomes a platform where people come to purge their emotions and feelings. Avoid adding that mistake to your profile and you should be all set to using LinkedIn the right way.

Conclusion

Make sure that you keep things professional on LinkedIn. Don’t curse, don’t be too long in your profile and don’t add special characters. Remain brand-focused.