8 Etiquette Tips for LinkedIn

LinkedIn continues to dominate the professional business end of social networking. The other networks can be viewed as social playgrounds: a bad move on Twitter, Facebook and Google+ will only cost you some trouble with your friends. So how should you behave on LinkedIn? The following etiquette tips for the platform should help a professional keep to the ranks. 1. Ask for Specific Recommendations that Highlight Your Qualities Asking for recommendations is very important in increasing your status as a professional. But, when you ask for a recommendation, ask for a specific attribute about your work. For example, you can ask a client to highlight your ability to organize tasks to completion. “I worked with Helen on a community project where her organizing skills saved us a tremendous amount of time.” Whereas asking for a general recommendation is not as effective. “Helen is a great team player. We enjoy working with her.” 2. Make Sure You Have Worked with Your Client Long Enough to Receive a Valid Recommendation Robin Reynolds, community manager for CouponCodes.com recommends that you wait until you have worked with your client for 6 months before aksing for a recommendation. If you ask too soon, you might get a superficial recommendation that is not very effective. 3. Make Sure You Write Recommendations Try to keep the scale balanced and don’t get stuck just asking clients for recommendations. Make sure you write recommendations for people you highly recommend. Besides, it is nice gesture to be on the other end of the spectrum. 4. Always Keep a Professional Attitude LinkedIn is a professional social network platform. The company takes pride in that aspect of their framework. Show an LinkedIn attitude by posting updates and photos that relate to your job or profession. Jenson Crawford, software engineering manager, says, “Please let what happens in Vegas stay in Vegas." 5. Be Willing to Help As the old saying goes, “It is better to give than it is to receive”. In the professional arena, giving and helping other colleagues can go a long way in making new connections and keeping connections. You can forward job vacancies for those connections that are a good fit. It tells your connections that you like to help others and spread the wealth. 6. Personalize Your Connection Requests Personalizing your connection requests, so the receiver knows where you connected up prior to the request. You can write something like, “We met at the such-and-such trade show in Las Vegas. You asked me to contact you when I got back from my trip.” Stay away from the template offered by LinkedIn. 7. Messages Email a message instead you using the LinkedIn messaging system. It’s best to use the messaging system as little as possible. Using it too much might seem like spamming, which is not allowed on LinkedIn. 8. Updates Make sure your updates are helpful information about your company or profession. LinkedIn is not Twitter or Facebook. "Less is more" applies to this particular platform. Keep the updates to a minimum, few times a day. An update could be an article, video or announcing an event. I am sure there are other etiquette points to follow on LinkedIn. Share them if you wish, but remember these points are just advice for your consideration or use.

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8 Etiquette Tips for LinkedIn

Kenna McHugh

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Kenna McHugh