Using LinkedIn Professionally – Could one ‘like’ lose you a client?

Using linkedin professionally

I bet you’re wondering – how could one ‘like’ on LinkedIn cause you to potentially lose a client?

Let me talk to you about using LinkedIn professionally for a moment!

LinkedIn is one of my favourite social media platforms.  Touted as the place where professionals connect, it is something that I use daily as a part of my personal social selling strategy, and also as a part of our broader organisational social media strategy.

If you use it regularly yourself, you may have noticed more so on LinkedIn than on Facebook that you’ll be shown things that other people have liked in your feed.  More often than not this is perfectly fine, as it is in-line with that person’s profession, and/or is something of a professional nature.  Exhibit A, found randomly in my LinkedIn feed:

 

using linkedin professionally

 

Sometimes though, I find myself mildly irritated when I see pictures of scantily clad females appearing in my feed.  It’s not the people that I’m connected to posting the photos in the first place, but they’re the ones that are ‘liking’ these photos, which is what is putting them in my feed.  Exhibit B (with the name and profile image of the person who liked it blocked out):

example of bad linkedin use

Upon seeing this I had a good think about how I knew the person I was connected to.  I clicked through to his profile, and under his Recent Activity I was fairly disgusted to find something I found completely inappropriate, whether it be on LinkedIn or otherwise!  Exhibit 3:

using linkedin unprofessionally

 

Just wow.  You’ve got to be kidding me!

Needless to say, the person I was connected to (loosely, as it turned out) was immediately removed – I’m not keen to be associated with that on LinkedIn!!  And to be honest, it left me questioning the values of his employer – why would they employ someone like that to represent their business?

So following on from this, what are my top tips for using LinkedIn professionally?

 

Using LinkedIn Professionally

1.  Optimise your Profile

What industry verticals are you going after?  Is your LinkedIn profile optimised for those industries?  i.e. Make sure your skills and summaries speak to the experience you have in those industries and how you can solve their problems.

2.  Have a Strategy

Make a plan around connecting with people in certain industries, companies and job roles that are in line with your marketing and/or sales strategy.  Connect with these people, but please (PLEASE) don’t immediately send them a 5 page sales email.  Wait.  Be patient!

3.  Make Time Every Day

Allocate 5 to 10 minutes of every day to spend on LinkedIn, scrolling through the newsfeed and undertaking some strategic activity.  Liking and commenting on various things, and participating in LinkedIn Groups will throw your name and profile up in the feed of your connections, meaning that you will gently be keeping front of mind with those people you’ve connected with.

4.  Publish & Share

LinkedIn’s publishing feature is a great one to use as each time you publish an article your connections get notified.  Publish blog pieces or similar that show you as a thought leader in your industry, or post case studies on what you’ve achieved for clients.  If you’re simply sharing a third-party article as a post, please tell me why you want to me to read it!  Don’t go with the standard “Great article” – tell me why you think I should read it.

5.  Be Professional

If my warnings above haven’t been enough, please ask yourself before you click Like, Share or Comment on anything – “Is this something I would be happy to say or discuss while standing in front of a room of 500 of my peers, colleagues, bosses and clients?”  If the answer is ‘No’ – keep scrolling!!!

 

If you’re on LinkedIn and keen to connect, you can find me here:  https://au.linkedin.com/in/tamarasernecki

 

If you’d like more help on how to use LinkedIn to go from connection, to coffee, to business, then you need our next LinkedIn training course which you can read more about and book into by clicking on the image below:

LinkedIn Training Course

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Simone Douglas

Simone Douglas

Simone is co-founder and Senior Principal Solutions Architect of Digital Marketing AOK. Simone offers over 17 years in corporate management roles encompassing generalist HR recruitment and development of small to large teams across multiple sites, industry sectors and states. Experienced in a variety of social media platforms and their complimentary applications, social media strategy, risk management, disaster recovery and associated HR policies and processes.