Your Personal Brand -13 Things Not To Do On LinkedIn

Building your personal brand is a big deal whether you are conscious of it or not. I am now celebrating one year of being active on LinkedIn. It feels as if it went by so quickly. Last year (May 2019), I would have looked at you and said “Eww” at the sound of LinkedIn. For all the LinkedIn warriors don’t kill me just yet, hear me out. I was actually an early adopter of LinkedIn back in the day. I dumped a very basic, unimpressive curriculum vitae on the platform (because that is what everyone did- dropped a resume), I looked around and didn’t see much happening. It just wasn’t appealing in any sense of the word. It was professional, yes, but BORING! 

I got bored and stopped using it before I even started. In fact, I don’t even recall ever making a post. I abandoned LinkedIn and enjoyed building my personal brand across Instagram and Twitter instead. While I was on these platforms cultivating an awesome and supportive online community, I didn’t realise that LinkedIn had evolved. 

I started using LinkedIn after I hosted a 2-day Digital Marketing Conference in Jamaica. An international speaker, Dr. Ai Addyson-Zhang took a liking to me and asked that we remain in contact; she asked for my LinkedIn profile. My eyes tore open and I retorted “who uses LinkedIn?” She looked at me, and asked: “who doesn’t use LinkedIn?”

Later on, I would find out that LinkedIn has 675 million active monthly users and that when people googled your name, your LinkedIn profile is almost always guaranteed to show up as one of your most prominent online profiles. YIKES! A profile with no photo and an outdated bio was out there representing the brand I was working so hard to build. Dr. Ai insisted that I start using it; she was of the opinion that the wider world needed to experience my personal brand online. She assured me that I wouldn’t regret it if I posted with as much energy and expertise as I displayed as the host of the Conference.

I went home, thought about it, and then decided to audit the platform to understand it. I don’t believe in jumping into anything without doing research. Much to my surprise, LinkedIn was appealing. It had become a massive, dynamic, professional platform. I suppose it was always THE professional platform but it had cool features, reaction buttons (like, love, curious, insightful, applause), LinkedIn Learning resources for those who had the premium package and it even had live streaming. Well, to be precise, not everyone gets access to LinkedIn Live and I am not sure when that feature will open up for everyone. After auditing for the week, I updated the profile photo, as well as bio and I started to post. I doubled down and committed to posting twice a day for at least 6 months. When building a brand presence, consistency is key across all platforms.

Opportunities are waiting

It has now been a year and I have been invited to various countries like Grenada, Singapore, Bahamas, Dom Rep, and Barbados as a host or speaker, all because of my online presence on LinkedIn. It works, it really does and I recommend it to anyone who is trying to build a personal/professional brand. The opportunities are endless once, one positions well, and has clarity about messaging and niche. 

I have had a year to observe, use, learn and grow and these are MY Top 13 things NOT to do if you are thinking of joining LinkedIn are:

Read the entire article here: https://terrikarelle.com/your-personal-brand-13-things-not-to-do-on-linkedin/

If you are new to LinkedIn, you got this! Don't worry, pace yourself but be as consistent as you can be. Don't try to ve like everyone because being unique is your superpower.

Cheers,

TK