Do you have good LinkedIn manners? For the most part most people do, but unfortunately, some people do not and it can damage your professional brand and reputation.
It’s really important to be a good corporate citizen on LinkedIn in order to build your brand, network and community. You can turn people off by not having good LinkedIn manners.
Here are a few LinkedIn bad manners that I keep seeing people make that you should avoid.
- Don’t sell your services in the comments of someone else’s post, highlight your expertise, sound like a know-it-all or link an article of yours/your web site in the comments of someone’s post (without first asking the author for permission). This is hijacking their post and it’s bad form. You can easily write your own post on a similar topic. Someone else’s post is not your opportunity for marketing yourself. If it happens to you, just delete that comment, which is what I do. I have had to block certain people who are repeat offenders – I don’t hesitate in doing it.
- Don’t send impersonal, mass automated sales messages via LinkedIn InMail- and please don’t do it as soon as they accept your connection request. This is spam and this will damage your credibility. Doing this is one of the fastest ways get deleted and blocked on LinkedIn. I don’t know why people do this all of the time – I always ask them if these one-size-fits-all generic sales approaches work – I can’t imagine they do.
- Don’t mass tag people in your posts. You may think this helps to alert people to read your posts, but it’s the equivalent of spamming them. When people do this to me, I unsubscribe from them and remove the mention from their post. I also make a mental note to just ignore their content and I think they don’t know how to use LinkedIn.
- Don’t hit on or flirt with anyone, and when in doubt on whether you should send the message, don’t. LinkedIn is a professional platform, so always keep it professional.
- Don’t brag. I see a lot of the “I am honored” or “I just won X award” posts or posts where individuals ask people in their network to vote for them for an award – my issue with these posts is that the focus is on you – instead of your audience. Everything you post on LinkedIn should be tailored for your audience’s benefit. Always focus on adding value to others. Think client-centric instead of me-centric.
Which one of these LinkedIn bad manners bugs you the most? Do you have any LinkedIn don’ts to add to this list? Add them in the comments!
Check out this video for more on improving your LinkedIn manners.