1 – Have a professional profile picture. LinkedIn is a professional networking site; therefore your picture should be chosen accordingly. This means you should not opt for a photo of you standing next to a car, on vacation in a swimsuit, cropped out of a group photo, or doing body shots at a bar. Great photos for Facebook = Bad photos for LinkedIn.
2 – Include up-to-date contact info. Provide a phone number that people can use to actually reach you, and preferably, share your mobile number. People change jobs often so don’t run the risk of having an out-of-date office phone number.
3 – Don’t highlight your unemployment.  I would recommend avoiding the use of words such as “In transition”, “Currently seeking new employment opportunities” or “Unemployed” as your status.  I also suggest that you refrain from using the ‘briefcase icon’ on LinkedIn which identifies that you are looking for a job. Although these phrases make your present situation clear, they unfortunately come across as a tad anxious or a little desperate. It is preferable to simply have your most recent company name and job title as your status until such time that you land your next role. Then, when you change jobs, ensure that you update your LinkedIn status within a month.
4 – Be selective with status updates and “Liking.”  I highly recommend including regular updates on LinkedIn by providing useful and interesting content for your network. However, ‘regular updates’ does not mean adding half dozen per day or “Liking” every second status update of other people. Be selective and don’t encourage your network to perceive you as “spammy.”
5 – Engage. Simply sharing your own articles and your own status updates without interacting with the rest of your network is the equivalent to having a conversation with someone and only talking about yourself. Engage on LinkedIn as you ideally would on a first date…with someone you hope to see again.