I admit it: I do get an ego boost when someone that I don’t know seeks me out to connect. From that statement alone, you’ll get that I’ll pretty much connect with anyone who sends me an invitation to connect! I’ve made it as easy as possible for people to connect with me and if you want to widen your network, and here’s what you can do to facilitate this.
First of all you need to go into your settings, as this is where we’re going to check how visible (or anonymous) you have made your profile and what you can do to change it if needed.
1. Allow anyone to send you invitationsIf you wanted to, you could ensure that only people who actually know you can send you invitations to connect. That’s ok, and you are perfectly within your rights to do this, just know that if you are a job seeker or someone looking to do business via LinkedIn, then this will create a barrier to building your network.
2. Make sure people can actually see that you’ve viewed their profile.If you click on someone’s profile, you have the option to choose what it is that they can see. You could be totally anonymous if you wanted to be (useful if you are checking out the competition), but if you’d like to give the person the opportunity to connect, then show them who you are. Personally, I see it as a knock on the door, and will often send out an invitation to connect with the message that I noticed the person viewed my profile and is there something that I can help them with.
3. Make your activity feed visibleBy sharing updates with everyone, then people who don’t know you get a chance to get to know you by what you are posting about. This could be a blog post from your own website or something you’ve shared. Either way it’s a great way of increasing your visibility on LinkedIn.
4. Make sure that people can message you.LinkedIn allows you to choose which messages you want to receive, which type of opportunities that you are open to receiving and your advice for people wanting to connect with you.As you can see, I want to know why you want to connect with me, so the standard LinkedIn message just doesn’t cut it for me but then I’ve made that clear in my profile. I’ve even provided a business email address that can be used by people who choose the “Other” option when sending an invitation to connect.
5. Make sure that you have added all your relevant email accountsWhen you created your account, you used one specific email address, probably your home one. However, LinkedIn allows you to add other email address, so that people who use “Other” option when sending invitations to connect can use any alternative email accounts that you have, for example your work/business email addresses.
6. If you have a premium account, then make sure that you have “Turn on Open Profile” switched on.
This then allows anyone on LinkedIn to see your profile and to contact you for free.
This then allows anyone on LinkedIn to see your profile and to contact you for free.
For and foremost, LinkedIn remains a social media platform, so by making yourself visible, you make it easier for people to find you and connect with you. Remember how the LinkedIn search engine works? It sorts by relevancy to the person doing the search, so if you are in that persons network, you get bumped up to the top of the search results. This is why having the right connections in the right networks is so vitally important.If you found this blog post helpful, then please let me know, and if you feel you would benefit from some help with your LinkedIn profile, then consider getting a full, systematic review of your profile or some one to one training and support.