LinkedIn Tips: Skip the Cringe and Optimize Your Profile

LinkedIn: Cringe or Professional?

LinkedIn has an image problem.

Or at least it does if you listen to the critics who ridicule it – and contribute nothing themselves. Those who scroll through the feed with a scornful smirk, but keep themselves out of the spotlight.

“Cringe” is the buzzword that comes to mind when it comes to self-promotion on the platform. And yes, we even agree with the critics to some extent: Between pseudo-poetry, showboating and motivational calendar quotes, it often seems that the very thing LinkedIn should stand for is missing – genuine relevance in a business context.

Following its acquisition by Microsoft in 2016, LinkedIn’s user numbers climbed steadily. Today, we’re among 1.3 billion members worldwide. And we understand that more users means more content – and therefore more attempts to stand out from the crowd. At the same time, the platform has continued to evolve: There’s been a regular addition of many features inspired by other networks such as Instagram, Facebook and TikTok, such as Creator Mode and video feeds. However, some developments disappear just as quickly as they arrived.

And yet we’re still fans.

Not fans of all the noise on the platform, but fans of its potential. Because we see day after day that, when used correctly, LinkedIn is not a stage for attention seekers, but a tool for building genuine relationships in a business environment.

LinkedIn Tips for Authentic Personal Branding

As specialists in personal branding, we’re increasingly seeing that what’s often sold under that label today is nothing more than rapid reach expansion without any focus on quality.

Impressions. Lots of them. And as quickly as possible.

We take a different approach:

Qualitative reach – i.e., visibility among the right people – is achieved by following a carefully thought-out, data-driven strategy.

But first things first:

Anyone using the platform to communicate should know what they want to accomplish. Lead generation, targeted network expansion or image building – clear, strategic goals are the foundation of any personal branding process.

You need to define what you want to achieve before you can meaningfully manage and evaluate content and activities.

Instead of simply chasing high numbers of impressions, you can carry out visibility analyses and define a search index to measure the success of your LinkedIn profile’s positioning – and provide meaningful figures to substantiate it.

Tips for LinkedIn Content: Avoid Generic, Forgettable Posts

Few users visit LinkedIn to read novels. They skim, scroll and occasionally pause when an interesting image, poster profile or intro catches their eye.

The “hook” that everyone’s talking about today is nothing more than a pointed conversation starter: a thought, an experience, an opinion that arouses curiosity. So far, so good. But when every coffee break turns into a leadership lesson, the cringe factor kicks in.

Let’s look at the three biggest content pitfalls on LinkedIn – and more effective alternatives:

#1 Death by cliché

“If you’re not getting outside of your comfort zone, then you’re not growing.”
“Our mistakes are our greatest teachers.”
“If you can dream it, you can do it.”

Overused phrases sound trivial and boring. People who talk this way sound like everyone else – and no one remembers them. While there may be a lot of truth in these sayings, we prefer to communicate more directly on LinkedIn.

Our LinkedIn Tip: Express your opinion, get to the point – and use your own words.

“I agreed to give a presentation that I didn’t feel ready for – and I learned more from that experience than I did in six months doing my everyday job.”

#2 Excessive use of emotions

“I was sitting in my car yesterday and I burst into tears. Then this one thought occurred to me that completely changed my mindset.”

The opening is highly emotionally charged – but it lacks context. There’s no link to the person’s positioning or to a topic. The resulting effect is uncomfortably personal rather than relatably human.

Feelings are fine – but only when expressing them fits your message and adds real value.

We think it’d be better to say: “After a long day at work, I realized that I’d been available to everyone all day long – but not to myself. How I’m learning to set boundaries.”

#3 Inflating mundanities into business issues

“I lost my pen today – what that means for me as a manager.”

Making a connection between mundane matters and business feels forced and absurd. It lacks relevance – and readers will lose confidence in the seriousness of the profile when every trivial moment is elevated to the level of profound business wisdom.

Our LinkedIn Tip: Small, everyday observations can be used as “door openers” for LinkedIn posts. However, they should be used sparingly and have a genuine connection to the topic.

Suggestion: “Today’s lesson: Plants need to be nurtured – much like your team.”

LinkedIn Tips in a Nutshell: Less Cringe, More Relevance

Successful posts stand out for expressing a clear standpoint that – rather than coming across as self-serving – offers guidance and added value. Content should always be designed to solve problems, answer questions or open up new perspectives that are genuinely important to the target audience. So, whenever you’re about to post, ask yourself: How will my intended reader benefit from this content?

If you don’t have an answer, you can hardly expect to make a lasting impression.

Don’t forget that LinkedIn has more to offer.

And if you want to harness the platform’s full potential, you need less drama and more clarity – about your goals, your opinions and your relevance.

Everything else is actually a bit cringe.