I recently designed and implemented a social media campaign for a client that was heavily weighted towards LinkedIn Marketing. Throughout the project, I noticed many profiles that I came across that were getting so many things wrong. I wanted to share a couple of things I noticed and hope these are useful to you.

The ‘strap-line’ for 95% of profiles is the persons job title - when people search for you or your business, how are you going to stand out by stating your a CEO or Managing Director? Remember LinkedIn is made up solely of professionals and there are many people claiming the same job title.

Incomplete profiles - this was a big issue I found with most of the profiles I researched. You would not take the time to design a website and leave a few pages blank, so why would you do the same for your LinkedIn profile?

Lack of effort in proactive activities - the vast majority of the profiles I researched were present in many groups, some even managing their own, yet rarely created content or put in the effort to really use LinkedIn’s key features for business means. Some of the profiles didn’t even know the value in the ‘Answers’ section…

The final point I would make is the lack in leveraging existing connections and networks and by-passing value in developing business relationships. Most of the time this is due to KPI’s or particular measurements being set, that indicate value in reaching certain numbers, which in fact lower the value of your network. Quality connections over quantity all day long!