This document provides tips to avoid 7 common mistakes on LinkedIn and succeed with the world's largest online business network. It outlines mistakes like only creating a basic profile and not engaging with connections. The tips encourage having a clear goal and plan, a complete profile with recommendations, growing connections through events and searches, personalizing outreach, and persisting consistently. The overall advice is to use LinkedIn actively to build relationships and provide value to others in order to develop business opportunities.

1. How to avoid the 7 Mistakes of LinkedIn and
succeed with the world’s biggest online
Business Community
“The Most Cutting Edge Information Available on Using LinkedIn
To Grow Your Business”
A Free Report by The Biz Links

2. 1. Ticking the box
The number one mistake with LinkedIn is to create your profile, connect to a small
number of people you know and then do nothing else. In common with other social
networking sites, simply opening an account and ticking the boxes misses the really
powerful business features. LinkedIn users need a clear objective and a plan
otherwise its enormous potential will be lost and it reverts to being a way of keeping
business contacts online.
You cannot expect to grow your business by sitting in your office all day; you have to
get out there and attend lots of events, build relationships and become involved. The
same applies to LinkedIn. If you just set up a profile and wait for people to come to
you very little will happen. You need to reach out to the LinkedIn community and
become actively involved.

3. 2. No Goal or Clear Plan of Action
Unless you have a clear plan of action Linkedin will be very proficient at wasting your
time! Write out exactly what you want to achieve on Linkedin, the messages you want
to deliver and the people you want to engage. Once you have done this you can then
figure the best People searches, Groups to join and how to take part in the community.
A specific plan of action may be:
“I want to develop working relationships with 2 new Accountants in the Midlands area
every month”
After setting your goal develop a plan in writing that will get you there - like this:
 Dedicate 45mins per day for LinkedIn and mark it as a core networking activity
 Write a free guide that will help accountants in some way
 Create 3 advanced searches for accountants and work though the list each day
 Set up 4 phone conversations with new accountants each week

4. 3. Not completing your Profile
Many profiles remain incomplete. Even on 95% your chances of rising to the top of
LinkedIn searches are diminished. Here is what you need to have a 100% complete
profile.
 A current position
 Two past positions
 Education
 Profile summary
 A profile photo
 Specialities
 At least three recommendations
Your Profile Picture
Crucial – make sure you have a great professional looking picture
of yourself. If you don’t have one invest a small amount in a
professional photographer to take some for you. It will be worth it.
We can certainly recommend the following photographers who will offer you a great
service
Midlands Area James Crockford www.jamescrockford.com 0121 680 0110
London Area Chris Holt www.christopherholt.com 07881 950 709

5. Your Professional Headline
Your professional headline is what sits directly below your name on your profile. It
follows you everywhere on LinkedIn and it is your first chance to get people to notice
you, so make it compelling – remember that people only care about their own
problems so ask yourself what problems do you solve?
Example of headline
Create some sentences that best describe what you do and how it helps others. This is
your professional headline – your one chance to make people want to connect with
you so make it compelling, inspiring and value driven. LinkedIn by default will add in
your most recent job title which looks unimaginative and gives very little information
about what you do, so be more creative.
When writing you headline make sure you cover the following 3 key areas:
 Description ► you job title
 Value ► what you actually offer
 Keywords► 1-3 descriptive keywords

6. Summary
Rewrite your summary in a draft format, keep it to around 250-300 words. Your
headline might bring people in but it will only take you so far. This section needs to be
rich and equally compelling, great summaries include:
 What you’re passionate about – people want to know what drives you
 Why you are doing what you are doing – again tell people who you really are
 The best examples of who you have helped this year – everyone helps people in
some way or another
 You as a person – if you have children say you have and how great they are
The vast majority of the summaries on LinkedIn read like CVs with lots of factual
information, which does little to inspire people, remember when you are out face to
face networking it’s all about you and how you help people – treat your LinkedIn
summary in a similar way.

7. Example:
I am a highly passionate, creative & hardworking professional who loves to help
people discover the huge potential of LinkedIn and overcome the frustrations of
modern day technology……
Websites
Adding in your company website is essential and we assume that you have all done
this. Google rates very highly links from LinkedIn so this will increase you Google
ranking and also give new connections a chance to view your website.
What is often missed here is the opportunity to add in two more websites. If you have
two other company websites then great if not then you still have a number of ways
you can add value
Add in your Facebook or YouTube pages or any other social media that you may be
using to promote you and your business.

8. Pick out two useful free / factual websites that will provide good information around
what you do and add them. This will give extra value to people who view your profile
and also give you a reason to send people to your profile.
When you add in your websites select the other “option” and add in a description of
the site in the field.
Specialities
The section should contain a summary that covers all of your services and products,
very much like a list of keywords for your website. Don’t leave anything out and be as
descriptive as possible. If you do Public Speaking then add it in here also as people will
find you when searching for speakers.
Don’t reinvent the wheel!
Use Google to find the top ranked websites of your competitors when you find the top
sites do a “Right Click” on your mouse and select “view source” this will open up a
second window showing to code of the homepage – at the top you will see there
Keywords use this as a guide to create your keywords!

9. Applications
LinkedIn offer a number of applications to enhance your profile. Out of the 19 that are
currently available the following add the most value:
Events – great for marketing your own events, also finding ones in your market and
checking out who will be attending
SlideShare Presentations – great for displaying a quick summary of the value you can
offer and also recently you can now upload videos. The maximum upload limit is
100MB so keep your video down to 60-90 secs
Box.net Files – this is a really great application that is rarely used on LinkedIn profiles.
If you have free material which you offer then use this application to get it up on your
profile and add real value to those who connect with you
Reading List by Amazon – this is also very useful as it can help with your credibility
with others, because they can see what you are interested it and that you are reading
good books.
A true football legend!

10. Recommendations
These are critical to the overall success of your LinkedIn strategy. In today’s business
economy it’s not enough to say you are a great accountant or sales trainer, you need
to show evidence to support this. Social Media is one of the most powerful ways to
provide this and it has even been given its own term, known as “Social Proof”.
Think about it when you view other profiles that have just a handful of
recommendations, what is your impression of them? You might think OK – but OK is
not OK. Profiles with 35-40 detailed recommendations really stand out and that is
what you need to aim for. Who would you rather do business with, someone with 1
recommendation or someone with 38!
Need more recommendations? Then make some yourself. The first rule of networking
in general is – give first, receive second
Giving a recommendation is one of the biggest compliments someone can receive. Do
not wait for someone to ask you for a recommendation take the initiative and write a
compelling recommendation for a fellow connection and watch them come back
tenfold!

11. 4. Using the Generic Messages
As a general rule always personalise your messages when you connect with people
and request recommendations. The Linkedin Coaches are not big fans of that standard
message that LinkedIn provides, which gives no information at all
“I'd like to add you to my professional network on LinkedIn.”
You are much more likely to get a better response if you add in the reason why you
wish to connect, for example
Networking Follow up message
Afternoon Bob,
It was a pleasure to meet with you at the BNI Breakfast event yesterday morning, I
would like to add you to my professional network and look forward to helping you with
your business over the next few months
Speak soon

12. Adding in a new contact message – may look like this
Morning Phil,
I noticed that we are both members of the business marketing group and I also noticed
on your profile that you work with Solicitors. I also work with them and wondered if we
could help each other by sharing our contacts as our businesses do not compete with
each other. I would like to add you to my network and contact you for an initial
discussion
Speak soon,
Think about how you can add value to the people you want to connect with.
The same applies when you ask for recommendations. Be specific – by asking to be
recommended for the work you did 6 months ago when you helped the company out
of a difficult situation with their accounts will yield you a much richer and more
descriptive recommendation than just saying
“I'm sending this to ask you for a brief recommendation of my work that I can include
in my LinkedIn profile. If you have any questions, let me know.

13. 5. Small number of connections
Connections lead to opportunities and opportunities lead to the need for more
connections – in short the bigger your network the more people you can reach and the
greater the likelihood that it will create your next big opportunity.
The ability to see and be seen though the LinkedIn network is directly proportional to
the number of connections you have
The big mistake with LinkedIn is connecting with just the people you know – you need
to expand your network of contacts, and here are some great ways

14. Following up from Network events
Get into the habit of connecting with the people you meet when out networking face
to face and preferably very soon after the event, take their business card and send
them a personal invite to connect message.
Advanced Searching
The advance searching feature can be used to target certain contacts and ideal
prospects

15. Target your ideal prospects with a combination of the following filters.
Geographic (2 digit post codes)
Specific Industry Codes (SIC)
Size of Business, (By turnover, number of staff and fleet size)
Key Decision Makers (CEO, Sales Director, Marketing Director, IT Director, Senior
Management)
LinkedIn then provides you with a list of the contacts that match the criteria; LinkedIn
is very clever in how it presents this list to you. The more relevant they are to the
search and your profile the higher they appear on the list

16. Contacts with 2nd next to their name mean that a contact in your network is directly
connected to them, the 3rd means that someone in your network in connected to them
though a member of their network.
What this means is that you can look at their profiles, identify the best contacts for
your needs, then ask the contact in your network for an introduction – fantastic way to
get to key decision makers in your market and grow your network of contacts.

17. Connecting Directly
If there is no one in your network that is connected to a potential contact then you can
try to connect with them directly. This can be a little risky as officially LinkedIn only
allows you to connect with people you already know in some way.
In our experience as long as you write a personal message with value and reason to
connect you will be ok. You may have come across the term (LION) next to the names
of certain contacts. (LION) means LinkedIn Open Networker – this is an open
statement declaring that they will happily connect with anyone.
The value of connecting with anyone is open to discussion, our advice is to
concentrate on finding people that you can help and are of value. There are also
various websites where you can download huge lists of LinkedIn open contacts that
will give you a huge network over night – again the value of doing this yet to be proven.

18. Using the Add Connections option
The add connections option is a very useful way to increase your network. It allows
you to import your Outlook contacts and Apple Mail. You can also upload a contacts
file from a spreadsheet, which gives lot more options to import contacts from various
sources.
Once the contacts have been uploaded LinkedIn sends a generic invitation out which is
non invasive and accepted by most. There are also various other options to find people
within the Add connections feature.
The most important action when growing your network is consistency, by committing
to spending 25mins per day looking for new contacts you will be past the 500 mark in
just a few months.

19. 6. Not doing anything with your Contacts
Now you have committed to growing your network of contacts massively you need to
actually do something with them otherwise it will be a waste of time and effort. Our
advice is to give as much value to your network of contacts as you can, remembering
the golden rule of networking, give first, Receive second. Ask yourself, “What ways can
I be more giving on LinkedIn?”
One very effective way to give value is to view all of your contacts and find the top 5
that are or will be of most value to you. Use the information that LinkedIn gives you on
their profiles, look to see who they are connected with etc. When you have your 5 key
contacts plan a strategy for developing your business relationships with them.
One very successful method if you are a service based business is to offer 2 free hours
of your services as a thank you for all they have done for you. After you have given
them your time don’t ask for anything back apart from a good LinkedIn
recommendation.
Provide them with quality introductions. Go out of your way to recommend that they
get in touch with key contacts that you have

20. Build the know, like and trust rule of networking in general by staying connected with
them. Send updates once a week, send them a personal message. Give them value -
send them quality people you know in your network that will help them, post updates
that promote their websites.
Don’t SPAM them, not ever! Save that for your less important contacts (If I now get
lots of SPAM, yes I will take it personally!)
This may seem like a lot of work and giving, but what you are doing here is creating the
“boomerang effect” most people have a hard time receiving and not giving back. It is
human nature, they will feel they owe you in return and will soon realise you are
worth helping more often.
For the rest of your contacts similar rules apply. Try to add value to them as much as
you can but always give priority to your Key Contacts first, you can seldom do both.

21. 7. Not Persisting
“Most of the important things in the world have been accomplished by people who
have kept on trying when there seemed to be no hope at all” Dale Carnegie
Ok I’m not going to lecture you here! Just remember that LinkedIn is no different from
face to face networking, which is about building life-long contacts that you can draw
upon and contribute to for assistance. It’s all about building solid relationships, which
takes time and cannot be rushed.
It takes time to build your LinkedIn network. It is important to persist patiently and not
be concerned with what others are doing.
To be a success on LinkedIn you need the ABBs of networking: Always Be Building your
Network and commit to doing so on a consistent basis.
Final Tip!
It is important that you make your actions and activities on LinkedIn consistent with
what you practice, or should be practising when networking in the real world. They
need to work together to form an overall business networking plan
We hope you found this introductory guide use and we would like to thank you for
taking the time to read it.

22. Martin Haworth Linkedin Training & Support
Martin Haworth is a business and management coach
and trainer, with a strong interest in using social
media as a tool to develop value-creating
opportunities online.
Following a successful corporate management career,
since 2001, Martin has worked worldwide with a
wide range of organizations helping individuals and
teams make the best of the opportunities they have
before them.
Over the past 3 years, he has built a sizeable Twitter following for himself, and a
number of businesses, managing over 38,000 followers on their behalf and creating
business opportunities across the globe.
At LinkedIn, Martin became aware of the opportunities during 2011 and took the time
to grow a personal contact list to over 400, leveraging a number of business
opportunities from there. The next obvious leap was to combine training, business and
social media and he is proud to have been an associate with TheBizLinks since April
2012."
Martin provides Linkedin training to businesses and professions in
Gloucester and Surrounding Areas.
To find out more about my training services please contact me on 0121 371
9427 or send an email to martin@thebizlinks.co.uk