How to use LinkedIn without embarrassing yourself

The lines between one’s professional and personal lives are beginning to blur on LinkedIn. Photos / Getty Images / James Watt
Users are now using the professional networking site to announce engagements and share cringe-worthy personal stories.
“Some personal news” must be the worst phrase in the English language, as yet another person launches a cringey personal post on LinkedIn, the professional networking site.
Call me a killjoy, but as I skim through my feed, I groan inwardly at the announcement of a new baby, an urgent mental health status, and a bewildering account of childhood derring-do. And don’t get me started on the back-slappy comments from acolytes below: “Bravo, Jonathan. It needed to be said.”
So when Brewdog co-founder (“and captain”) James Watt announced his engagement to television personality and raw dog food entrepreneur Georgia Toffolo this week, it’s hardly surprising it sparked derision.
Above a picture of the couple, Watt – possibly tongue-in-cheek – compared the engagement to a merger: “She said yes! Georgia Toffolo & I did a very cool deal at the end of last week. It is a very long term, contractual arrangement which looks poised for future growth (business and personal). Lots of mutual investment in this one.”
The response was brutal. “LinkedIn is a disease,” claimed @RossMcCaff, posting the comment on X (receiving 14,000 likes). “Horrible place. I feel soiled after about 5 minutes there. It’s all I can stand,” agreed another user.
When I consult etiquette coach William Hanson, the author of Just Good Manners who runs his own etiquette training institute (The English Manner), he agrees we shouldn’t enjoy a humblebrag on LinkedIn. Users need to be mindful of context.
“Getting engaged is an incredibly happy time, and I can absolutely see why Georgia, who I’ve met, and is lovely, and James, who I’ve not met, want to shout from the rooftops. In fact, if you don’t want to shout from the rooftops, I’d say it’s a warning sign – maybe the future marriage is not going to be happy. But it’s a bit American to do it this way.”
“They’ve worded it like a business contract to appear less tacky,” adds Laura Windsor, who runs her own etiquette academy. “It is slightly tacky. But an engagement gets people talking and what they want is publicity.”
Back in the day, an engagement would just be a short notice in the newspaper. So what’s it doing on LinkedIn? When it was launched in 2003 in Reid Hoffman’s living room, the platform was the home of CVs.
But since it was bought by Microsoft in 2016, it has become the shouty town-crier, full of memes, selfies, motivational quotes and pictures of pets more suited to the “weekend musings” of Facebook or the knockabout tone of X.
My favourite gems today include a monstrous plate of fried eggs (“the ketchup has to go”) and a man who found a bag of cocaine on his local beach.
LinkedIn sets great store on users being identifiable (in contrast to anonymous trolls on X). And yet members seem unaware of how cringeworthy their stories can appear to the rest of us.
Some blame lockdown, when Zoom meetings intruded into the domestic space and work colleagues got to see your family in their pyjamas. Cool and corporate doesn’t cut it any more. Arguably we’re all content now!
I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve been congratulated for mythical work anniversaries. And do I really need to wish the head of Thames Water happy birthday?
“When I see a feed saying, ‘After eight years we’ve purchased a house blah blah’, I do wonder,” a PR friend says in irritation. “Why do I need to know this when I don’t know you, and I’m only connected with you because you provide my company with a service?”
The trouble is, LinkedIn is a necessary evil. With 900 million registering their personal CV and career attainments on the site, we need it to hunt for jobs and internships, plus to connect and learn new skills.
So how do we navigate the platform with dignity (and reputation) intact?
Here, I ask the experts about the dos and don’ts of LinkedIn etiquette:
“Don’t try to connect with someone just because you think they look hot in that tiny photo – you literally have no idea about their personal life,” a luxury travel PR sighs.
“In the past, people would connect and say I’m interested in your business, but they were just there to see if I was dateable. Now I get a male assistant to go through my invitations,” sighs Windsor.
No one wants to hear about your school reunion, engagement or divorce. Keep that for Instagram and TikTok, advises PR expert Fiona Harrold. “There’s almost an unspoken agreement, let’s just keep this one place for work.”
Of course, sharing an ADHD or cancer diagnosis can help us navigate a professional relationship with care and sensitivity. But, remember you are putting yourself out there so a future employer can see you.
Experience is not the same as showing off. “Be your own publicist. Position yourself powerfully and offer compelling proof of your authority and achievements,” says Harrold. But do not cold sell. “Sending a DM to sell your service is a huge faux pas and will never work.”
Hanson advises promotion of the company or wider team you work for, rather than naked self-promotion. “That’s a lot nicer and more selfless than: ‘Here’s a beautiful, high-gloss image of me sitting on a sofa talking to you about why I should work for you.’”
There’s nothing wrong with brushing your hair for a photo, but over-filtered shots are depressing. Ditto too much flesh. One picture on my feed suggests an accidental cleavage shot might shift more product. While in another, dear God, a crass man talks about the “nips” he can see through a woman’s blouse (when she was posting earnestly about body dysmorphia).
“This will cost you your reputation and potentially, your career. This is not the place for public shaming, criticism or blame,” stresses Harrold. “If you hang a colleague out in public, the world will know.”
If 100 people in your industry were laid off today, keep your very good news to yourself.
There may have been a dozen rejections before your frenemy’s novel was accepted. “Everyone is always surprised and delighted and thrilled. They are the only verbs,” warns Hanson.
“Especially British tone, because we are very ironic and quite sarcastic. And these social media companies were created by, and used predominantly by, Americans. So it’s super difficult to get tone across effectively,” says Hanson.
If you accept a friend request and get an auto-generated message like, “Hey, Liz, I don’t know if you’ve ever struggled with massive weight gain…” delete it.
If people are ignoring your messages, they have probably seen them. Let them go.
WTF is not an acceptable acronym and avoid party politics unless you’re working on a campaign.
“You may have forgotten that your boss, line manager, HR manager is also a connection and you’ve been liking job ads/posts from a new contact or brand,” observes a friend in communications.
“You can still follow or be connected with them but you just won’t see their stuff,” says Hanson. “I have a couple of friends who are lovely in person, but on social media, they grate. Obviously it means if they do post some life-momentous piece of news, like adopting twins, I might miss it. But ho-hum, if they’re actually that close a friend I would hope they would phone or text rather than sticking it on social media as a catch-all for telling nearest and dearest.”
Last year research led by the University of Edinburgh Business School found that using LinkedIn induces imposter syndrome. When users browsed the platform and posted about their personal achievements (thereby heightening their professional self-focused attention) they reported feeling fake, which included thoughts of anxiety and depression.
On the positive side, researchers have also found that viewing posts can produce a positive emotion – dubbed “symhedonia” (“joy for others”). This experience is more likely when the post is by a close friend or acquaintance. Though if I’m honest, I rather love the “career crash” posts where users explode after applying for one too many jobs. They’re my people.