After receiving such a positive response to my recent post covering the 10 things I do on LinkedIn® each and every week, I knew it was time to share a few more of what I refer to as basic “LinkedIn Hacks,” so here goes.
Have you spent anytime poking around your Settings on LinkedIn? Well, if you haven’t you should. There are quite a few things there that if you knew exactly what they meant, you would be toggling off a check box or two faster than can read this post.
One of the two most important things I do when I first start a one-on-one session with a new client is to go into Settings/Profile/Privacy Controls and turn off the “Turn on/off your activity updates” option. Why, you ask? If you’re going to go into your LinkedIn profile to make a whole bunch of edits, in most cases, you’ll want to turn off those updates so your network isn’t getting a few too many bits of unnecessary info about you in their LinkedIn stream. Here’s what it looks like:
And I always recommend that my clients turn this back on just before they make their final major edit so that their polished new profile gets as many eyeballs as possible once it’s completed. Here’s what it looks like:
Now, take a look at the right-hand side of the profile above and look for the People Also Viewed box in the bottom corner. What you have to wonder is why would this person want to advertise the LinkedIn profiles of people who might be after the same job as she is or are competing for the same type of contract work? You can easily remove this box via Settings/Profile/Privacy Controls as well and I highly recommend doing it sooner rather than later.
It’s bad enough we appear to be stuck with the People Similar To box in the upper-right, but at least you can get rid of the People Also Viewed box and keep the distractions to a minimum when someone is checking out your profile page. LinkedIn is all about “being found” and why lose a visitor right after they find you?
Personally, I think LinkedIn should pay us to allow that box to appear on that page. However, what will likely happen down the road is that they’ll charge us for keeping the basic version without these type of “ads,” which is essentially what that box is and for your competitors no less.
And, lastly, if your Inbox keeps getting filled with unwanted InMails for things you don’t want or need, just wander over to Settings again, but this time look for Communications. There you’ll find, Turn on/off partner InMail. You can also turn off these solicitations/distractions by unchecking the boxes. See below:
Hope these “hacks” prove helpful to you, and if you’d like to learn more of my LinkedIn Hacks, or how to seriously leverage LinkedIn to achieve your goals, just click here.
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