First impressions are critical to your success in building business relationships, which just happens to be one of the primary functions of LinkedIn.
It's human nature to maintain our initial impressions of people, and we often find it extremely challenging to change our perceptions of them, even when we're presented with lots of evidence to the contrary.
Factor in, also, that you have only seven seconds to make an impression - good or bad.
In this post, we'll take a look at ten LinkedIn mistakes that can make a poor impression on prospects, clients or your industry peers, and how to avoid making them.
1. Boring or undescriptive headline
One of the gravest LinkedIn mistakes you can make is to use a boring or undescriptive LinkedIn headline. Your LinkedIn headline is the most critical part of your profile, because along with your name and profile photo, it's the first thing that anyone will see when they find you in the search results or land on your profile.
Your headline will essentially determine whether a viewer will choose to click on your profile, or move onto someone else.
Your headline should also include keywords you'd like to be found for, which could consist of your position or the services you offer. You can also include a client-focused statement that'll capture a viewer’s attention and entice them to click to learn more.
To ensure your headline creates a great first impression and helps you stand out, check out this guide on creating the perfect LinkedIn headline.