Making changes to your profile is key to developing a strong presence on LinkedIn – adding elements and tweaking are useful not just because you are honing the information that you present to people, but also because it makes you more visible to your network.
Automatically, every time you add something to your profile or make a change, then your 1st level contacts are informed via a status update – in general, this is good as it demonstrates to your network that you are active at the same time keeps you ‘front of mind’, even if only in a small way.
However, there may well be times when you’ll want to have a real overhaul of your profile or you want to make certain changes that you would prefer to be made “under the radar” as it were, rather than overtly announced to the world (well, your connections anyway). As an aside, LinkedIn suggests this might be a good idea if (and I quote) “you’re looking for a job and don’t want your present employer to see that you’re updating your profile”.
Hhmmmm, thanks for that.
Anyway, whatever your reasons for wanting to do so, you can achieve this quite simply by making a change on your settings page. It’s in the right hand column under ‘Privacy Settings’ in the section called ‘Profile and Status Updates’ – just untick the box at the top to change it and it will stop sending out those automatic notifications.
You can now make as many changes as you like without your network being notified. However, once the “spring clean” is complete, I’d recommend that you put it back to being open and keep that drip feed of information – and the passive marketing that it brings with it – going out once more.
Takeaway Point: Settings can be used in lots of ways so if you have changes you wish to make quietly to your profile, this is the way to do it.
