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Three Mistakes You Cannot Afford to Make with LinkedIn

by: Margaret Ross

LinkedIn is the worldwide sensation, owned by Microsoft,  that allows you to stay connected with current business contacts, make new business contacts, follow companies and see what fascinating things they're up to. LinkedIn can also be a waste of your time, a benefit to your competitors and an aggravation to your friends.

Wow, big difference.

Millions love LinkedIn. Of course, if there are fans, there's bound to be some haters. Haters are the people that just don't appreciate LinkedIn no matter what benefits it may potentially provide. Some may avoid the LinkedIn experience. You don’t have to be one of them. I’ll give you three (all too) common mistakes that I see people make on LinkedIn and tell you how you can easily avoid them.

Regularly Made... Rookie LinkedIn Technical Errors

 

Mistake 1: Under-Protecting Connections

It is a BIG mistake is you allowing your competitors to get a look at all of your connections. (you know, those people you have worked so hard to "connect" with and yet you are pretty sure they are ready to jump ship at any moment and work with someone else instead of you?) Yes, your "first degree" connections are, by default, capable of seeing your connections. However, you can easily hide those precious connections from your clever competitors by simply changing the setting in the "who can see your connections" part of the "Profile Privacy Settings" screen.

Mistake 2: Over-Sharing Skills & Details

Raining down information about yourself to all of your LinkedIn connections is a mistake. Most people are up to their ears in information and are constantly bombarded with updates about every little thing. For example, ("Oh, great—yet another update on John and what he's up to…hmmm this is his second LinkedIn update today. At 6:30 am, he reportedly gained leadership skills and now he has learned PowerPoint. What social media does he think this is? --- Twitter?") Does everyone really need to know that you took that class in macramé, which you are sure will add to your web design abilities? Or that you now have now acquired “client service” skills? They may have thought you already had them. Avoid this by selecting “stop showing details” in your privacy settings. (See example highlighted in yellow.) Do you really want everyone to know that you are on the lookout for a new job? Or, more specifically—do you really want your boss to know that you are on the lookout for a new job? Remember to reverse this setting when the detail you are updating is something such as securing first-round funding for your start-up company or a Pulitzer Prize.

Is LinkedIn Holding Your Contacts and Calendars Hostage?

1. It started innocuously. You were in a hurry and doing multiple things at once. (A normal day.) You were creating your LinkedIn account. The screen showed you a nifty little prompt that encouraged you to enter your email address, so you could “See Who You Already Know on LinkedIn.”  That seemingly helpful offer seemed logical.   You were quickly following all the sign-up steps; the suggestion "to see who you already know"  was in a bold print on a blue background, and in large type.  

2. Their second largest selling point and getting us to do what they wanted was this phrase,  “Syncing your contacts is the fastest way to grow your network. “ The phrasing made it easy for you to see the benefit of doing what LinkedIn wanted. 

3. The third element to catch your attention was the familiar text box prompt, “Your email address,” followed by a cheerful bright blue Continue button. 

Most of us don’t notice or read the even smaller print located above the email prompt that says, “We’ll import and store your contacts."  What does even mean?!

We might have noticed where they were leading us if the words had said something like, "We now own all your emails, phones, names,  and other information in your contact lists and we will do whatever we want with them. " But -  maybe not. 

And - by the way, they might have added, - "We also have and are storing the information in your online calendar"

When you clicked the “Continue” button   LinkedIn took your entire contact list without paying you a single penny for total access to your friends, family, business contacts, doctors, and clients.