Do you have good LinkedIn manners?

For the most part most people do. But it’s really important to be a good corporate citizen on LinkedIn in order to build your professional brand, network and community.

Here are a few LinkedIn bad manners that I keep seeing some individuals make on the platform that you should avoid.

1. Don’t sell your services in the comments of someone else’s post or link an article of yours/your web site in the comments of someone’s post. This is hijacking their post. Even if you did write something that is relevant to the post, it is bad form to essentially steal the author’s thunder by directing others’ attention to your thought leadership versus theirs. Just create your own post. And if you’ve ever had this done to you, just delete that annoying comment.

2. Don’t send anyone (especially your connections) impersonal, mass automated sales messages – and please don’t do it as soon as they accept your connection request. This is spam and this will damage your credibility. Doing this is one of the fastest ways get deleted and blocked on LinkedIn. Everything you send your connections should be tailored and positioned for their benefit if you want to build relationships. Always focus on adding value to others and you’ll never have to sell anything.

3. Don’t mass tag people in your posts. You may think this helps to alert people to read your posts but it’s the equivalent of spamming them. Just don’t.

4. Don’t hit on or flirt with anyone, and when in doubt on whether you should send the message, don’t. LinkedIn is a professional platform, so always keep it professional.

5. Don’t post anything political in nature or too personal. While it’s good to let people get to know more about you and your life, oversharing doesn’t help your brand. Neither does talking about politics. I personally don’t think you should ever discuss politics on social media.

Which one of these LinkedIn bad manners bugs you the most?

And do you have any LinkedIn bad manners to add to this list?