Who's Viewed Your Profile remains the #1 feature for the second year running with 76% of respondents picking it as a favorite feature. -Forbes
My initial thoughts on the "Who's Viewed Your Profile" option on LinkedIn were, "Wow, this is creepy!" But it makes sense. Naturally, we as humans are kind of narcissistic and curious. It's natural that we look at others profiles to see what they are doing and we want to know who's looking at ours.
Instead of just using this feature as a way to boost your ego/ creep on other people, maximize this LinkedIn feature to expand your reach and engagement. Follow these steps:
1. Have a complete profile. First off, make sure that your profile is complete. If you are going to be connecting and engaging with people on LinkedIn you will want to make sure your professional, personal information is complete and up to date. Furthermore, if you're a business owner, your company information should be clearly communicated in your profile.
2. Have your privacy settings off. You can select what others see when you've viewed their profile under the privacy settings option. Keep it so that your name, headline and photo are fully displayed. The point of using LinkedIn is to make worthwhile connections, not creep on other people, so why wouldn't you have your professional headline and photo displayed?
3. Search for people you want to connect with. Take some time to expand your own network. Search for others and view their profile. They will get the notification that you have viewed their profile and will, most likely, look at your profile in return. Again, we are curious beings, this is natural. This gives others the opportunity to connect back with you if interested.
4. Connect with people who have viewed your profile. If you see that someone has viewed your profile and you think they would be a valuable connection, request to join their network. After all, they viewed your profile so they must be slightly interested in who you are and what you do. See if there's a way you can work in a recent blog post or an ebook offer to share with them when you ask them to connect.
5. Send a message to those in your network who have recently viewed your profile. You can only send messages to those who view your profile that are already a connection. This is a great way to reconnect with contacts. When you see someone has viewed your profile, why not follow up with a friendly, "Hey how are you? What's new?"
6. Post more updates. Post relevant questions in groups you are a part of. Share your blog content and other interesting articles on your public profile. When you share content, try to spark further engagement by asking a question so that you can start an on-going conversation.
7. Update your profile regularly so you get more views. Similar to posting updates, update your profile frequently. Update your summary. Add to your skill set. Revamp your experience section. Join more groups. Updating your profile will get you more views and ultimately make you a more predominant LinkedIn user.
The Who's Viewed Your Profile option is certainly one that can cause some alarm. Fear not! LinkedIn is a professional networking platform. Recognize and respect that and you can be using the platform as an incredible tool for engaging and spreading information about your product or service.
The post LinkedIn's Who's Viewed Your Profile Feature appeared first on Melissa Leiter.