Over the past few weeks, I have sent out a series of LinkedIn hints and tips in infographic form relating to elements on the site that I have been asked about, that I have seen have been causing issues or things that have changed and were worthy of a mention.
I have decided to bring those together in a single post to save you having to search them out on my LinkedIn feed in an effort to be extra helpful .. oh, and with an additional explanation below each one in case the image does tell you the whole story!
Hope you enjoy and do feel free to share!
1. Don’t send your message before you want to
When you go to your Messenger system, there are occasions when, quite naturally, you might want to start a new paragraph and have hit the
That is unfortunately the default format on LinkedIn. However, if you go to the Messanger area then just next to the “Send” button, you will see three dots which allows you to turn that off and allow you to format your message as you wish.
2. Who can see your Email address?
LinkedIn has always recommended you only put your contact info in the official places – phone number in the phone field, email address in the email field & so on.
I could see the logic in that – it gave you control. They could see your email address if you were connected & if you weren’t, then they couldn’t. Nice and simple.
The trouble is that I wanted to be contacted by people I wasn’t connected to … that was my raison d’etre for being on the site.
If I had piqued their interest with an article, a comment I’d left or my profile, I wanted them to be able to get in touch, so I added my email address to my Summary section making it visible to all. Not exactly within the strict guidelines of the site but practical for what I wanted to achieve.
Now, we have much more control. More control AND this section of the profile is much more visible, Double bubble!
This can be altered from your Settings page & the options are as displayed below. The previous default is still an option but this has now been joined with options to hide it altogether or open it up to everyone.
Which to choose? For business developers, “Everyone on LinkedIn” is the obvious choice but for more cautious souls among us perhaps 1st & 2nd level connections is preferable.
3. Improve your hompage newsfeed
Lots of people complain about what they see on their homepage on LinkedIn – the trouble is that, as it is the FIRST page they see, this can heavily influence whether they consider the whole of LinkedIn to be a useful tool or not.
LinkedIn has been going to greater and greater lengths to modify and customise what we see in this news feed to make it as relevant as possible – with varying degrees of success IMHO. However, you also have control over what you see there as well, either by changing the order so that you see “New” at the top (ie. chronological order) as well as weeding out posts or connections which are not quite what you are looking for.
So, as a reminder, just like so many areas of LinkedIn, where you see three dots, there is a menu that gives you control over elements that you see there from removing the post to ‘muting’ the person who sent it to you, or even reporting it.
4. Want to message non contacts for free?
There is function called Openlink which forms part of the Premium accounts on LinkedIn, though to be brutally honest, it’s not very well know … but can be really valuable, hence mentioning it!
In most cases, when you see that someone has a premium account (and that’s usually indicated by the gold coloured IN symbol), then the likelihood is that you will able to message them for free even if you are not connected. Essentially, they have paid to be able to receive an Inmail message which is free of charge to the sender.
So, if you see the IN symbol of the profile of someone that you wish to talk to, another option for you might simply be to message them and see where that takes you!
5. Make sure you can find and share people’s content
Visibility is important on LinkedIn and engagement is the life blood of the site. Therefore, seeing what people have been commenting on or sharing on LinkedIn is a key startpoint to the process in so many ways. Equally, being able to find it so that you in turn can pass in on to others is also key – being able to support.
However, with so much going on, you probably won’t see it first time on your homepage – so take a moment to visit their profile page and have a look at the ‘Activity’ section where you will find what they have been posting and conversations they have been participating in.
Then help yourself and your colleagues (or your network) by passing on valuable information that they have posted to your own connections simply by clicking ‘like’ or leaving a ‘comment’ on one of their updates.
It raises your profile, helps your connection and ultimately benefits your wider network too … got to be good then! 🙂
6. Where to find advanced search on LinkedIn
If you are looking to create a targeted search on LinkedIn then you are going to need access to the filters which will give you the ability to choose people with certain job titles, based in certain location or working in certain companies / industries etc.
There used to be an “Advanced Search” link which was a bit of a giveaway as to where you could find these, but today it’s actually just as easier.
To reach them, you need to be on the “People” search area – so click in the search box at the top of the page and choose “People” from the drop down menu that appears. Then click on the “All filters” button on the right hand side and ‘Hey Presto!’ the wonderful world of LinkedIn search is revealed to you.
Well, something like that anyway! 🙂
7. Format changes on your Personal Profile
Some mini changes have been arriving on your profile but potentially significant if they stick.
Firstly, LinkedIn has just introduced a ‘See more’ option on my profile meaning that vast chunks of my Work Experience section are now “below the line” and only accessible after a click.
This means that – just like with your Summary section – what you put in those first few lines is really important to grab people’s attention and get them to read more.
Recruiters will hate it … but what about you?
Secondly, any company where you have had more than one role will now appear as a single section with the individual roles applied under a single company section rather than separately as it used to be. The argument is that it shows the progression within a company more clearly.
8. What’s missing to make you All Star
LinkedIn likes to tell you how good your Profile is – actually, that’s not strictly true, it’s like to tell you how complete your Profile is, in particular with regards to 7 areas that the system deems it is important to have in there.
As for the quality of what’s in there, well, that still falls to you to control but it’s good know what the system thinks you are missing, particularly because it is important to get to the top “All Star” rating as it can affect your ranking in the search results.
On your own Profile page, if you are not already “All Star”, you should see a bar indicating some complete your profile is according to their criteria – hover over it and a pop up box will indicate which items are missing to get you to the next level.
9. Make your notifications valuable
Noticed the new types of notifications in your Notifications area? Well, heads up, there are going to be more coming your way too as LinkedIn builds in notifications about the new Groups activity over the coming weeks.
Perhaps you are still currently being asked to wish people Happy Birthday but don’t wish to do so – some people do and some don’t. Either way, you can hide individual types of notifications quickly and easily, allowing you to concentrate on where people are really engaging with you.
Personally, it is engagement notifications that I am most interested in, such as:
i) who has commented on the same post as me, allowing me to continue to join in the discussion;
ii) who has liked or commented on one of my posts so that I can reply or thank them;
iii) who has mentioned me in a post, essentially highlighting it to me or asking for my opinion.
I therefore hide those I’m not likely to use and focus on the Notifications being something useful to help identify key events going on around the site rather than as a noisy mass of information.
More information in https://lnkd.in/eVJ9rid
10. Make your Website Links into Calls to Action
Got website links in your Contact Info? I hope so.
Does the display name next to it just say ‘Company Website’? I hope not.
Get a description or call to action in there quickly and easily but choosing ‘Other’ from the drop down menu in that area instead of ‘Company’ and you will be given the chance to edit the text that appears alongside your URL.
Not got anything in there at all? Then check out my post on how to make the most of your Contact Info area.
I hope that they are of benefit and, given my current role, it would indeed be remiss of me not to mentioned that this remains the tip of the LinkedIn iceberg and if you would like to learn more as a team in in-house workshops, as an individual through 1-2-1 coaching or as either of the above in a Public course (London, Manchester, Birmingham, Cambridge and Reading are all catered for) then you would be more than welcome.
