10 challenges of writing a Linkedin profile

Challenges are relative to the person creating their own Linkedin profile.

It may depend on several factors

1. You need to have a high level of literacy. Any spelling mistakes or grammatical errors that you make will work against you.
2. You need to have good strategic thinking skills. We all likely have a long list of jobs, skills and/or accomplishments that we could post. But should we? Your Linkedin profile has to be consistent with your purpose of creating it in the first place. Sometimes, less is more.
3. You need to get comfortable with promoting yourself. As a business would when marketing itself, your Linkedin profile is marketing you. You have to make sure it is written to present you in the best possible light. 
4. It’s no longer a matter of sharing what you have done in the past, it’s a matter of promoting what you can do in the future. You need to craft your content so that it comes across as a solution to somebody else’s problem.
5. You need to get comfortable with writing about yourself in the 3rd person vs 1st person ‘I’ statements .
6. If you are searching for work, your Linkedin profile has to be consistent with your resume. Your Linkedin profile allows you to expand upon some of the claims that you have made on your resume and provide examples of your work.
7. You need to fill out all of the areas in your profile. This not only means filling in dates and titles, it means providing content that once again, shows you in a good light.
8. You need to actively build your network of connections. Consider 500 connections as a minimum. It may be the first thing that many people look at. If your connections number is low, some may wonder if it’s worthwhile connecting to you.
9. Linkedin is one of many social media venues. You need to ensure that your digital footprint is consistent with the professional image that you want to portray.
10. You should consider your Linkedin profile as being iterative. It needs to be tweaked and adapted on an ongoing basis.
11. If you are using it for job searching, you may want to keep a file of different content e.g. jobs and duties that you have had in the past and then change your Linkedin profile whenever you are applying for a job.

From my perspective, there are at least two categories of connections on Linkedin. There are those that take a lackadaisical approach to connecting and those that take it very seriously.

Linkedin is merely a tool for you to use to promote yourself. At present, it is likely the best one for achieving results.