Christopher Rollyson to Join LinkedIn Inc. in CMO Coaching Session

Top Ten LinkedIn Profile Errors Cited

The Business Marketing Association is holding a sold out MarketingMasters Lunch featuring Patrick Crane, LinkedIn Inc.’s top marketing executive, November 6 at The Standard Club in Chicago.  The program, “LinkedIn: A Collaborative Nexus for B-to-B Marketers,” includes a keynote, 1-on-1 coaching sessions, onsite networking and a special drilldown session focused on educating executives about the strategic and tactical value of LinkedIn.

The BMA tapped Christopher Rollyson as part of the coaching team alongside several LinkedIn specialists. The pre-arranged coaching sessions will give participants pointers on creating LinkedIn profiles that attract people who can help meet their business goals. According to Rollyson, 99% of LinkedIn profiles are substandard:

Top Ten LinkedIn Profile Errors

Some of the most egregious faux pas that participants will learn about:

• Misspellings or nonstandard names prevent people from finding you.
• Being faceless; a picture aids recall when you’ve met people face-to-face, and people with pictures far more likely to be contacted than those without.
• Not using “Status Visibility,” LinkedIn’s internal version of Twitter, to keep your Connections current on what’s important to you today; based on what you’re doing, they can reach out to help you.
• Not using the summary to show how you are qualified to do what you want to to; use the “experience” to support the summary.
• Not leveraging the “Specialties” area for keywords that are associated with the people you want to attract; these are bait, and you want LinkedIn members searching for these keywords to find you.
• Being afraid to list multiple activities as “Positions” under “Experience.”  Although members have to make sure that concurrent activities could not be construed as conflicts, employers increasingly understand that employees have side businesses and activities.
• Being careless with Recommendations; EGLI advises to view them as a portfolio, and use them to support the themes of your profile, so “set the table” when you ask for one.  Ask the recommender what aspect of your work you would like him/her to comment on.
• Missing the gold mine of LinkedIn Answers.  These discussion forums can be included with the Profile and add significant value because they enable people to see your expertise and professionalism in context.  Few LinkedIn members participate in the Forums.
• Lack of strategy or purpose; the most effective profiles have an organizing principle that supports a goal, which is the spine, and everything else branches off from it.
• Omitting personal interests; Boomers were taught that “work” was separate from “home.”  No longer, so include your passions under “Additional Information” to enable people to connect with you that way, too.

About the Executive’s Guide to LinkedIn

Christopher Rollyson founded the Executive’s Guide to LinkedIn in January 2008 to advise companies on using LinkedIn for process innovation.  Rollyson has advised hundreds of executives and companies across the U.S., and alumni have their own online community for continuous learning as well as their own LinkedIn Group.  He also builds private support communities for enterprise clients that apply LinkedIn to business development, talent acquisition, marketing, R&D, public relations, product development and other processes.  Rollyson has no commercial relationship with LinkedIn.