Why Your Company Email Should Be Your Primary Email Address On LinkedIn

Which email address should be your ‘primary’ email address on LinkedIn?

I found myself in a discussion where a person suggested you should never have your company email address shown on LinkedIn. And I simply had to disagree!

My Thoughts on LinkedIn Email Addresses

“Rule One,” I told them, “is to make your primary email address on LinkedIn your business email address. If you use this platform to engage in business (which most people do) – I want that communication on my business channel. I am embarrassed to find I am sending a business-related communication to a person’s personal email account.”

The business should also have the audit trail of communication on its servers, not locked behind LinkedIn’s walls. However, I encourage any communication to be made directly via business email ASAP, and not left in ‘messages’ on LinkedIn. The company should own the audit trail of communication. Access to anyone’s email address is widely known to be easily obtainable, so I doubt this is a serious security risk factor.

Of course, I would also advise that everyone should have at least two email addresses logged with LinkedIn. That way, in the event they lose access to one, they still have the other to be able to regain access to their account.

The Mentality Around Primary LinkedIn Email Addresses

As things are now, some companies actually prohibit employees from using social media, and strongly discourage employees from displaying company email addresses on their LinkedIn profiles. They believe this is a potential security breach for hackers to use these email addresses to attack their servers. This zero-risk approach is still the situation with some companies I work with, but that mentality is changing rapidly.

It’s a simple argument really. Wouldn’t you rather have those employees as ambassadors of the company brand, than lock them down? I’d go so far as to say, if that were the policy of a company I was about to join, I wouldn’t dream of doing so…

What do you think? Should you have your business email address be your ‘primary’ email address on LinkedIn? Let me know on LinkedIn!

For more advice on how to use LinkedIn the right way, check out my LinkedIn Training Course.