Your recommendations are displayed next, as shown in Figure 4–15.
ACCOMPLISHMENTS
One of the big changes LinkedIn made in its overhaul of the dashboard was to create the Accomplishments section of your profile, reorganizing a lot of miscellaneous topics into one category, including:
■ Publications
■ Certifications
■ Patents
■ Courses
■ Projects
■ Honors & Awards
■ Test Scores
■ Languages
■ Organizations
Figure 4–16 shows you the various topics in Accomplishments. Let’s walk through them briefly.
FIGURE 4–16. Accomplishments Information
Publications
One of the powerful sections of your profile is Publications, where you can display your published books or articles. You used to need a valid ISBN number for your published book to use this section, but the rules have been relaxed. Your publication listing includes your book title, publisher, publication date, and a description of your book. You can also add a link to your website or any other retailer or site where people can purchase your book.
You can also add ebooks and self-published books in this section and link to your website or Amazon where people can purchase and download your books. I upload my digital magazine, Social Selling Made Easy, to Amazon and publish it as a free Kindle book, which I add as a Publication in my LinkedIn profile. It’s a great way to get your content in front of millions of people for free. Another great feature of Publications is the ability to link to the LinkedIn profiles of your co-authors, as shown in Figure 4–17. I wrote one of my books with New York Times bestselling author Joel Comm, so both of our LinkedIn profiles are displayed in my profile, Joel’s profile, and all the other book authors’ profiles. This is a great way to associate yourself with famous authors, adding to your credibility.
FIGURE 4–17. Publications with Co-Authors
Certifications
People often list multiple certification abbreviations in their name field. I recommend including only one or two of your top certifications, like CFA or CPA, at the end of your name and put the rest of your certifications under this section. When you add too many abbreviations at the end of your name, it can look cluttered, and it may be hard for people to search for you by your last name. If I add MBA and CPCC (my Certified Professional Co-Active Coach certification) to my last name, my name would be Ted Prodromou, MBA, CPCC. When people search for Ted Prodromou, the LinkedIn search algorithm might not easily find me because it thinks my last name is Prodromou, MBA, CPCC.
Patents
This is self-explanatory. Enter all your registered patents in this section. You can include single-owner patents, for which you are the sole patent holder, as well as patents for which you are one of many named on the project. This is a fairly common occurrence for engineers especially, so just make sure you denote that your name isn’t the only one on the patent.
Courses
Have you created an online course or created a course for a school? You can enter all your courses in this section. I display my Linked Accelerator LinkedIn course here, which lets me link directly to the registration page. This is a great way to demonstrate your expertise and sell your courses. This is also one of the few places in your LinkedIn profile where you can add clickable links.
Projects
This is another section where you can add clickable links, so take advantage of it. I’ve created multiple projects, so I can share my Social Selling Made Easy magazine, a free LinkedIn training webinar, and my YouTube channel, Social Selling TV. Add any significant projects you have successfully completed or links to your promotional material.
Honors & Awards
This section is for any honors and awards you have received in your scholastic or professional career. When I was in the computer industry, I won many customer service awards, so I included them here.
Test Scores
When you are still in school, a recent graduate, or you receive a professional certification, you can share your test scores here. I’ve found that unless these are particularly pertinent to potential employers or possible business partners, they aren’t terribly useful.
Languages
If you speak multiple languages, include each one in this section. Many companies are looking for multilingual employees, so recruiters and hiring managers will find you by searching LinkedIn for specific languages.
Organizations
Do you belong to professional organizations or are you a board member at a nonprofit organization? This is the section where you can share your membership in professional organizations like Rotary or your local Chamber of Commerce.
CONCLUSION
Your LinkedIn profile is now optimized for the search engines and ready to promote. To begin sharing your LinkedIn profile go to the main menu, select Me, View profile then select Edit your public profile at the top of the right column. At the bottom of the page, choose Create a Profile Badge to promote your LinkedIn profile or use your Public Profile link, which is at the top of the column. You can also add links to your LinkedIn profile from your website, blog, and email signature to generate traffic and improve your search rankings. LinkedIn frequently adds new sections to your profile, which lets you share more information about yourself. This helps people get to know, like, and trust you faster, accelerating the sales process dramatically. As you notice additional sections in your LinkedIn profile, fill them out to keep your profile as complete as possible.
In Chapter 5, I’ll introduce you to the LinkedIn privacy settings so you can control when and where LinkedIn and its partner websites can use your profile information. I’ll show you why it’s important for you to configure your privacy settings properly to prevent your profile from appearing in inappropriate places, like in an ad near a competing company’s profile.
For additional updates and how-to videos, visit https://tedprodromou.com/UltimateGuideUpdates/.
Chapter 5
LinkedIn Privacy Settings
Now that your LinkedIn profile is complete, you can configure your privacy settings. LinkedIn lets you control how your data is displayed and who is allowed to see your activity on the site.
In today’s world of cyber attacks, hacking, and data privacy issues, securing your LinkedIn profile is more important than ever. Internet privacy remains a controversial topic because people are rightfully concerned about how much personal information is being collected by websites and how they are using it. Your LinkedIn profile does not contain any personal information, like your home address or telephone numbers, unless you voluntarily add it to your profile. I do not recommend doing so. It is important to include your work or mobile number and office address so prospects and customers can easily reach you, though. Remember, more than 500 million people potentially have access to this information, which could be a blessing or a curse depending on who decides to use it. People will also be able to get your company phone number from your LinkedIn company page, so make sure you add a link to your company page in your profile. Make it easy for prospects and customers to contact you.
Speaking of choosing what to display, did you know you have two profiles on LinkedIn? Your public profile is what’s displayed to people who aren’t logged in to LinkedIn and is what shows up on Google searches. Although you can customize it, it usually includes your photo, your name, your number of connections, your industry, and the general region where you’re located. Your primary profile is what people see when they are logged in to LinkedIn: the details of your current and past jobs, your education, your recommendations, your websites, Twitter account information, and which LinkedIn Groups you have joined. In the center column of your profile, people will see all your LinkedIn activity, including your status updates, article posts, and when you share other people’s updates.
People can also see all your LinkedIn connections, if you choose, which will help them get
a sense of who you are. This helps users connect with like-minded people who may become clients or great referral partners. Many believe this is a great way to grow your professional network because you’re being totally transparent with other LinkedIn members.
If you don’t want to let people see your connections, you can change your privacy settings so you are the only one who can view them. Some people believe this gives them a competitive advantage.
For example, I used to work for a software company, and all the salespeople were connected with one another since they were on the same team. A few years later, many of the salespeople left the company and went to work for competitors. If these salespeople let everyone see their connections, their former co-workers could reach out to these connections and try to persuade them to switch to their business. If you don’t share your contacts with other LinkedIn members, they won’t have an opportunity to steal your customers away from your company. Be careful what you share!
When you recommend others on LinkedIn, your recommendation will appear in their LinkedIn profile if they choose to display them. This lets people see whom you do business with and helps them find great resources when they need assistance. People always prefer working with service providers that have been recommended.
The left column of your profile sidebar displays People Also Viewed. This section shows you the other profiles people viewed after they looked at yours. This lets you see people LinkedIn has associated with your profile because you work for the same company or in the same industry, have similar job skills, or have other similarities. This often leads you to people you should be connected with on LinkedIn.
Now let’s dig deeper into the types of profiles you can set up.
PUBLIC PROFILE
Your public profile can be viewed by people who are not logged in to LinkedIn. This profile appears in Google searches if you choose to make it visible to the search engines. You can edit public profile settings and control which parts of your profile are displayed publicly. You can open your profile completely so all information is visible. You can also make your public profile completely private. The third option is to customize the display of different elements of your profile. For example, you can display your basic information, headline, and summary and block the rest of your profile from the search engines. Most people use the custom configuration to display only some information in their public profile.
To control which data fields people see in your public profile, go to the LinkedIn menu, select the dropdown menu under Me, and select Settings & Privacy. Figure 5–1 shows you the options you have to control your privacy.
FIGURE 5–1. Settings and Privacy Dashboard
The dashboard is segmented into four sections:
1. Account
2. Privacy
3. Ads
4. Communications
Let’s take a look at each one.
ACCOUNT
You can do a lot under the Account portion of your dashboard. You can edit, add, or remove email addresses associated with your account. You can also add or remove the telephone number displayed in your account and change your password. An interesting setting is Where You’re Signed In, which tells you how many devices you are currently logged into. In Figure 5–1 above you can see I have 13 active sessions, so I need to look at this to see why I’m logged in so many times. I usually log in to LinkedIn from my desktop computer, laptop, iPad, or iPhone. You can log out of all your sessions to make sure there are no unauthorized users of your account. You can also turn on two-step verification as an added layer of security. With two-step verification, when you log into LinkedIn, you will receive a security code on your mobile device that you must enter to complete your login.
In Figure 5–2 below, you see Site Preferences. This is where you can select your preferred language, whether you want videos to autoplay, where your profile photos will appear (I highly recommend displaying them everywhere), your feed preferences, and your name, location, and industry preferences.
FIGURE 5–2. Site Preferences
Feed Preferences is where you customize the content for your newsfeed. When LinkedIn Pulse existed, we used to customize our newsfeed in Pulse settings. Now we select our content as you see in Figure 5–3 on page 53. Just click on + Follow to add content from a person, company, or hashtag topic. To unfollow, simply click on Unfollow.
You can also customize your newsfeed content by clicking on the ellipsis in an existing post and selecting Improve My Feed, as shown in Figure 5–4 on page 53.
If you have a LinkedIn Premium account, you can see the details of your plan and payment history in the Subscriptions and Payments section of your account. The Partners and Services section is important because you can see which outside services and websites you allow to access your LinkedIn data. As you can see in Figure 5–5 above, I don’t allow any Microsoft services to access my account, but I have ten other services allowed. I like to review these services occasionally to make sure I’m not allowing apps I no longer use to access my LinkedIn account. I can also add my Twitter account in this section.
FIGURE 5–3. Feed Preferences
FIGURE 5–4. Improve My Feed Preferences
FIGURE 5–5. Permitted Services
PRIVACY
The Privacy settings let you control who sees various portions of your profile, including your email address, your connections, who viewers of this profile also viewed, your last name, if your name will be mentioned when content about your employers is posted, how much of your profile is shared in your public profile, and whether your work experience will appear in the Resume Assistant (a feature in Microsoft Word).
In my case, I choose not to limit much in my profile because I want as much exposure as possible to attract new connections who may become new clients. I have nothing to hide, and I’m proud of my work history and accomplishments. But it’s up to you what you share from your LinkedIn profile, and it all depends on your objective, which we discussed in Chapter 2. Figure 5–6 on page 55 shows you the available options on the Privacy tab.
FIGURE 5–6. Privacy Settings
ADS
LinkedIn categorizes the Ads section into General Advertising Preferences, Data Collected on LinkedIn, and Third-Party Data. These settings may not make sense at first glance, but to a marketer, the distinctions are very important. To minimize the amount of data LinkedIn collects about you, I recommend turning off these settings. Figure 5–7 on page 56 shows the options for controlling your advertising preferences.
General Advertising Practices
This section covers three options you can use for advertising. Let’s dig into them briefly; we’ll talk more about LinkedIn advertising in Chapter 20.
1. Websites you visited. LinkedIn will ask to “use information about your visits to an advertiser’s website to provide insights that help the advertiser understand which promoted jobs and ads may be relevant to you.” If you say “yes,” you are allowing LinkedIn to share data about you with a LinkedIn advertiser if you click on their ad. I recommend turning this setting off.
2. Ads beyond LinkedIn. LinkedIn will ask if you want to see their ads on other sites you visit on the web? I recommend turning this off as well.
3. Profile data for ad personalization. LinkedIn will ask if it can “use your profile photo and profile information (like name or company) to personalize the content of promoted jobs and ads.” You are the only one who can see ads with your photo, so I have no preference on this one.
FIGURE 5–7. Ads Settings
Data Collected on LinkedIn
In this section, you can control whether you see relevant ads based on your interest categories, connections, location, demographics, companies you follow, Groups, education, job information, and employer. I recommend turning all these settings on if you are looking for a job. For example, if you live in San Francisco, work for Twitter, belong to Groups related to social media, or attended Stanford, LinkedIn will only show you job ads related to these ca
tegories.
Third-Party Data
LinkedIn gives you two options to consider.
1. Interactions with businesses. LinkedIn will request to “use information about websites you’ve visited or information you’ve shared with businesses to show you relevant promoted jobs and ads.” I recommend leaving this setting off. This means LinkedIn is using cookies to track other websites you’ve visited so they can show you targeted job offers and advertising.
2. Ad-related actions. LinkedIn asks if it can “use information about actions you took off LinkedIn (like applying to a job) in response to ads to understand which promoted jobs and ads are most relevant to you.” LinkedIn only reports aggregate ad performance to advertisers and it won’t tell them about specific actions you took. I recommend turning this setting on if you want to see more jobs like the ones you already applied for.
COMMUNICATIONS
If you want to control the amount of communication you receive from LinkedIn and your connections, it’s easy to do so from the Communications tab.
To minimize the number of messages I receive from LinkedIn, I turn off almost all messages sent to the email address I have on file with LinkedIn. I interact with other LinkedIn members through the Messaging app and the Notifications tab. This also helps me avoid redundant messaging, as messages appear both in the LinkedIn Messaging app and my primary inbox if the feature is turned on.
I don’t receive any update messages from my LinkedIn Groups because most of the posts in Groups are blog posts and self-promotions. I allow anyone to invite me to connect, and I am open to receiving messages from any of my 1st-degree or 2nd-degree connections who have a premium account with an open profile. I’ll explain networking in more detail in Chapter 11, but for now, here’s a quick summary of the LinkedIn network hierarchy:
Ultimate Guide to LinkedIn for Business Page 6