The Marmite nature of LinkedIn Notifications

June 15, 2017 by ,

Well, as the phrase goes, you either love them or hate them but one thing that you’ll find it difficult to do is simply miss notifications on LinkedIn … and that’s probably a good thing, given what they are trying to achieve. 🙂

As with so many things on LinkedIn, the issue arises because people want to use the site in different ways and so something which one person finds of value, another might consider to be a waste of time or better suited to a site like Facebook. And so it is with LinkedIn Notifications. So the challenge we face is how to get the best out of them and to avoid the annoyance that people feel that they are in some way irrelevant and intrusive.

Luckily, and again like so much on LinkedIn, you can customise this section allowing you to see the ones that you are interested in and hide those that for you are simply irrelevant noise.

So what are Notifications?

Notifications do very much what they say on the tin – they simply notify you when something which is deemed of interest or importance to you happens. You’ll find them in the main menu and they appear for a number of very different reasons.

Some of the main ones are when Continue reading →

Article Categories: Advanced LinkedIn, LinkedIn Advice, LinkedIn Strategy, LinkedIn Tips
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Don’t connect on LinkedIn!

May 30, 2017 by ,

caution-pleaseIf you are not going to connect properly on LinkedIn then in many respects, it’s better not to do so at all – okay, that’s all a might harsh really, but as I mentioned in my post entitled Personalise your LinkedIn Invite, I really would encourage you to always, always write a message to the person you are contacting rather than just send out the generic “I’d like to add you to my professional network on LinkedIn”.

Think about it – someone walks up to you at a networking event or a Conference. They don’t say a word … they just look you squarely in the eye and force their business card into your hand … then they walk off again. How would you react? Cherish that business card and resolve to call the person at the first opportunity … or bin it?

Surely that’s just the same thing isn’t it?

I do understand why some people are doing it though … because there are so many places on LinkedIn where we are essentially being ushered into sending the generic invite because of an inviting and highly visible “CONNECT” button tempting us in.

So where does this happen so I can avoid it?

Well, I’m glad you asked – this happens in the following places: Continue reading →

Article Categories: Advanced LinkedIn, B2B Advice for LinkedIn, Business Development on LinkedIn
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Think when you search on LinkedIn …
or better still, think before you search

March 20, 2017 by ,

LinkedIn SearchNo matter why we are on LinkedIn, using the search functionality effectively is always going to be hugely important. It can save us hours by ensuring that we target those who are going to fit our criteria and near as possible and allow us to focus in on quickly and with greater clarity on whom we want to talk to.

In many ways, it really doesn’t matter whether you are prospecting for new clients and business, identifying new partners or suppliers, using LinkedIn to identify potential candidates for a role you are looking to fill or identifying potential company contacts as a job seeker … in each of these cases, the more effectively we search, the greater our chances of success are.

This is all particularly true with the search options on the new 2017 interface – most of the functionality that we need is still in there but so many people people that because the ‘advanced search’ link has disappeared that you can no longer do complex searches on the free account. Not true! All the searches below are from the free account.

Anyway, before you start to search, take a step back …

… think …

… decide whom you are really looking for …

… what position they might hold or what skills they might possess …

… how might they present these elements themselves …

… then start to search.

The greater the number of “right people” that we can establish a first pool of people who fit our search criteria the better it will be for us and allow us to apply the more targeted criteria to a better set of possible targets. Continue reading →

Article Categories: Advanced LinkedIn, LinkedIn Search, LinkedIn Strategy, LinkedIn Tips
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Getting Prepared for LinkedIn’s new Interface

November 26, 2016 by ,

surgeonThere’s been a slow drip feed of information since August when LinkedIn announced that they would be making big changes to the interface and it has subsequently turned out, some equally large changes to aspects of the functioning of the site.

Probably.

I say probably because even those with the beta version of this new interface have been experiencing a developing system with multiple changes since it arrived some 4 weeks ago, and no doubt will continue to do so as the process develops.

What we can be sure of is that we do need to be prepared and to make sure that we have our data secured so that we are prepared for whatever awaits.

These are 6 actions, I would therefore encourage you to take:

1) Back up your Profile

The format of the profile (and certain content elements of it too) is changing with the new interface so it’s a good time to make a back up to make sure that you retain all of the information that you have put in there. Continue reading →

Article Categories: Advanced LinkedIn, B2B Advice for LinkedIn, Businesses using LinkedIn, LinkedIn Advice, LinkedIn Company Pages, LinkedIn Site Changes, LinkedIn Tips
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Communicating your career intentions on LinkedIn
(aka – it’s not you it’s me)

September 30, 2016 by ,

Jobs on LinkedInHere’s a situation for you, one that perhaps you or someone you know might be in. You’re looking for a job – you don’t necessarily want your boss to know but you would like to make recruiters aware via LinkedIn that you … just might … be available and interested.

There have always been some very obvious methods open to us – adding “currently looking” in your professional headline or prominently in the main body of your profile would be one such way. That’s a little bit in your face though and certainly something that could be seen by your current employer.

Now, however, we have another – one that is only visible to users of the full Recruiter package on LinkedIn it’s true, but one that I’d recommend adding in any case to any active job seeker on LinkedIn.

So what does it do?

Essentially it allows us to add and share certain pieces of specific information and makes them available via one of the advanced search filters in the LinkedIn Recruiter package.

To tap into this, you’ll need to head over to Continue reading →

Article Categories: Jobseekers using LinkedIn, LinkedIn News, LinkedIn Site Changes
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Using hashtags on LinkedIn

September 21, 2016 by ,

linkedin-hashtagThings have changed over the years when it comes to using hashtags on LinkedIn but, as of September 2016, I’m pleased to say that they are making a welcome return! Hurrah!

The article at the bottom of this page was the initial situation when LinkedIn first introduced hashtags in 2013 – life was good and the world was full of the joys of hashtags, pushed primarily by Twitter if truth be told. LinkedIn followed suit and all was well in the online world with LinkedIn and Twitter cooperating in certain areas with some interlaced functionality when it came to updates and news.

Then divorce came – almost of Brangelina proportions – and the fall out began. It’s not clear if Twitter won custody of the hashtags but certainly LinkedIn was refused viewing rights and, in stark difference to the rest of the online world, LinkedIn strode on without hashtag support.

It seems though that time is indeed a big healer and last month on the LinkedIn App, hashtags once more became live and searchable again.

While this new element has not yet reached the desktop version, there are major changes afoot and they look certain to make a return there as well. Hopefully we might also get the return of the site wide search which would make LinkedIn a much more integrated and navigable environment – only time will tell.

I, for one, am very pleased – a return to this mainstream functionality seems sensible in my eyes and seems to reflect a more open stance from LinkedIn of late which I believe will serve them really well in the years ahead.

My only hope is that people don’t go silly and flood their posts with silly long hashtags which ultimately do no-one any great good in a futile attempt at humour and the like. #linkedinyeah #hopingforsense #hashtagsereturn #happymark #hashtagmadness

Whoops …

——————

[Update 2: as of August 2016, strange things are afoot! When using the LinkedIn mobile app, you can now once again use hashtags which are showing up in the typical clickable way. This is still not the case on the desktop version but we can but hope that that will follow suit once again and maybe, just maybe, a site wide search again which would be very welcome. Watch this space!]

[Update: as of 29th July 2013, LinkedIn has removed the LinkedIn Signal functionality from the site and with it the use of hashtags as quoted below. A real pity because of its immense utility – if there are any ways to find the information it used to provide then I will report back here.]

[Initial post: March 2013] When we talk about hashtags, in most people’s minds they are primarily part of the Twitter ecosystem – the ability to categorise posts and allow people to search using those terms has certainly been of major benefit to tweeters. On LinkedIn, however, they have never been a particularly strong element, even less so after LinkedIn and Twitter’s ‘divorce’ of last year.

There has, however, been a little bit of a resurgence of late and LinkedIn has brought in an additional search option using hashtags that we might be wish to build into our own updates. Continue reading →

Article Categories: LinkedIn Site Changes, LinkedIn Updates
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