Staying on Users’ Radar Screens

The easiest way to stay on your LinkedIn connections’ radar screens is to be active on LinkedIn. Participate in conversations, share other users’ content, comment on their updates, join groups and participate, feed your blog and Twitter content into your LinkedIn update stream, and be visible. You can learn more about all of these activities and opportunities in Parts 2 and 3 of this book, but first, you must understand what LinkedIn updates and activity feeds are.

In simplest terms, everything that you do on LinkedIn is considered an update, which can appear in your activity feed. Depending on how you configured your account privacy settings (discussed in Chapter 3), some or all of your updates could be visible to your LinkedIn connections and network.

Let’s assume you’ve configured your LinkedIn profile for maximum growth and made all of your updates public within your activity feed. You can view your activity feed or your connections’ activity feeds by visiting a profile and clicking the See More Activity link in that person’s activity box, as shown in the lower right-hand corner of Figure 5.13.

You can also click the Home button in the top navigation bar (when you’re logged in) and scroll down to the activity updates section on the left side of the page to view your connections’ activities in a variety of useful ways. For example, as shown in the center of Figure 5.14, you can view All Updates, Shares, or Groups, or you can click the More link to select Profiles, Recommendations, Companies, Answers, Connections, Photos, or News. Click on any of these links to view only specific types of activities such as when a person edits his profile, receives a profile recommendation, adds new connections, or uploads a photo. You can even click the Search Updates link to search for updates using specific keywords.

Figure 5.13: Click the See More Activity link in a person’s profile to view more of their LinkedIn updates.

Figure 5.14: You can view activity feeds in a variety of ways to reduce update clutter and focus on updates that matter most to you.

Select the More link and choose See Additional Views from the drop-down menu to open the Category View page shown in Figure 5.15. Here you can view the most recent connection activities by category (such as Updates, Recently Connected, Group Activity, and more), by individual connection, all of your connections’ updates, or just your own updates.

Figure 5.15: From the Category View page, you can select tabs to view updates by connections, notifications, and more.

If you want to pare down the updates that appear on your home page, you can click the Customize link from the More drop-down menu on your LinkedIn home page. This opens the Account settings window discussed in Chapter 3. The Account settings window is where you can pick and choose the types of updates you want to show and hide as well as how many updates to show on your home page.

WARNING

There are many ways that your name, knowledge, expertise, and personality can be seen on LinkedIn through your activities and updates. Don’t be shy if you want your efforts to deliver the results you need to be successful.

Publishing Content and Participating in Conversations

You can tell your LinkedIn connections what you’re doing, publish your thoughts, offer tips and education, share content you like, and more through your LinkedIn status updates. Just log in to your LinkedIn profile and you’ll see a text box at the top of your LinkedIn home page inviting you to Share an Update as shown in Figure 5.16.

Figure 5.16: Type your update into the text box and click the Share button.

Type the message you want to publish in your activity feed into the text box. You can click the link labeled Attach a Link to include a link to content on another web page in your update. You can also simultaneously publish your update on your Twitter account by selecting the check box next to the Twitter bird icon (if you’ve linked a Twitter account to your LinkedIn profile as discussed in Chapter 6).

When your update is published, it is visible to everyone you’ve allowed it to be visible to through your account configuration settings. When people see your updates in their network activity feeds, they can comment on your update, like it, or share it with their own audiences. When they do those things, it puts your updates in front of their LinkedIn connections via their network activity feeds. That’s more exposure for you!

You can also comment, like, or share updates published by your connections that you find in your network activity feeds. Simply click the Comment link beneath an update that you want to discuss. The original publisher sees your comment, as does anyone who received the original update in their network updates (regardless of whether or not they’re connected to you). Your comment can jump-start a conversation and help you build your relationship with that person and their audience. At the same time, your comment appears in both your update feed and the original publisher’s network activity feed.

When you click the Share link on one of your connection’s updates, you share just the link, not the original commentary or comments other people have posted to the original update. You can add your own message with the shared link. While this option isn’t conversational like the commenting feature, it does show that you are spreading another LinkedIn member’s content and gives that member additional exposure. You can opt to share content by posting it to your own updates (to notify your network), to groups only (to notify group members), or to individuals only (to send a direct message to individual LinkedIn Inboxes). Furthermore, your activity shows up in your own activity feed and the original publisher’s feed.

Finally, you can click the Like link to show that you like a connection’s update. You can also add a comment when you like an update. When you like an update, the activity appears in your own network activity feed and a network update is sent to all of your connections. Of course, the original poster also sees that you liked their update in their activity feed.

QUICK TIP

To help you get started on the right foot with useful LinkedIn activities and network updates that position you for success, following are 10 tips you can use immediately:

• Publish useful and meaningful updates that your connections would find valuable. Don’t clutter their activity updates with irrelevant information.

• Use the Category view of network updates to quickly find recent updates that you can comment on, share, or like. Real-time conversation is a powerful thing.

• Be sure to include a comment when you share or like another user’s update. Never miss an opportunity to strike up a conversation.

• Post a return comment if someone comments on your update. Would you ignore someone who tried to talk to you in person? Don’t ignore them on LinkedIn.

• Conduct network activity keyword searches to monitor updates that matter most to you and jump into relevant conversations. Set up and save a keyword search with an email notification to follow specific activities.

• Check out the Profiles network activity view and comment on recent promotions, awards, job changes, and so on. A simple congratulations can mean a lot.

• Ask a question in your status updates. You’d be surprised how many people will answer as your network grows.

• Click the Like button and help your connections get more exposure for their great content. What goes around comes around.

• Monitor Company network activity to see which of your connections are following new companies and which companies you’re following are looking for new employees. Share job opportunities related to your industry with your connections. You never know who you might be helping find their next career.

• Click the Send a Message link under an update to send a private message to a connection and discuss that update with them in greater detail. It’s a great way to reach out to someone personally and get to know them better.

Using Private Messages to Deepen Relationships

Public conversations via network updates is a great way to stay visible on LinkedIn and make sure people recognize you and get to know what you’re about, but don’t forget the private messaging tool available to you. Click the Inbox link in the top navigation bar when you’re signed in to your LinkedIn account to open your private LinkedIn messaging tool. You can send private messages to any of your first-degree connections, receive private messages, manage invitations, and search for messages from your LinkedIn Inbox page.

The private messaging system in LinkedIn is a way to leverage one-to-one marketing by getting to know people better on a personal level.

However, don’t inundate people with unsolicited marketing messages. First and foremost, your LinkedIn efforts should always be about building meaningful relationships which lead to organic indirect marketing of yourself, your business, and your brand. The LinkedIn community is adamant in its intolerance for overt marketing and sales.

The Least You Need to Know

• Your LinkedIn network extends to three degrees of separation, putting you in front of more people than you probably know.

• You can communicate with your LinkedIn connections via public updates and private messages.

• Even if you don’t know someone on LinkedIn, you can connect with him or her through an introduction or InMail.

• Your LinkedIn updates appear in your connections’ network activity feeds, so be active to stay visible.