Five LinkedIn Tips & Tricks

Master LinkedIn - Grab a Tip and/or a Trick

LinkedIn, our professional networking site, is a constantly changing business tool. You can bet on features being added and even removed with no notice or warning. Despite this frustration, LinkedIn is still a great social media site. 

Periodically some of my peers and I find cool tricks and tips that can add value to our use of LinkedIn. When we do we love to share them with our network. Here are 5 that are useful to us and hopefully to you as well:

Tip # 1 - @Mentions

@Mentions refer to “tagging” an individual or business in a LinkedIn Status or Comment. @Mentions are useful when you want to acknowledge another LinkedIn member or alert them to a public post that they may find useful. Unfortunately today, @Mentions do not work on company pages or in Groups.

Here is the hidden secret of @Mentions. You can now @Mention anyone or any company on LinkedIn. You do not need to be 1st level connected and they do not have to be participants in the discussion for you to be able to @Mention them. Anyone in your Network can be @Mentioned in a Status or Comment.  You can use this hidden feature to acknowledge or thank any LinkedIn member for content you find and/or share on LinkedIn, or to alert them to information they find useful . This is a great way to engage with LinkedIn members. 

Tip # 2 - Searching your Connections Contacts

This feature disappeared a few weeks ago for nearly a week. I joined my peers in lobbying (snorting, sneering, yelling, screaming at) LinkedIn to bring it back. LinkedIn claim is was a technical snafu. Regardless, it’s back. Here is the hidden secret. You can search the connections of your 1st Level Network directly from their profile. Try it: Go to one of your connections profile.Click on the #of Connections they have.

See the little Looking-Glass to the right of New (6) - click on it. Now you can type in a keyword, title, first name, last name or company name (or a boolean search string) and hit Enter The results will display in the same window. This search process is very useful to find a person that your highly connected LinkedIn connections may know.  Quick searching of your highly connected LinkedIn connections is a great way to find new people on LinkedIn. 

Tip # 3 - Conserving your Commercial Search results

Early in 2015 LinkedIn modified their search engine to get us a deeper view of our entire network (1st, 2nd & 3rd level connections). However during this “improvement” LinkedIn also capped the search results for all LinkedIn Members who are using the Basic (Free) LinkedIn Subscription. If you do a lot of searching in LinkedIn you will eventually run into the Commercial Use Limit. Here are two hidden secrets that help mitigate this search limit.

A - Minimize hitting the Search Icon or Advance Search when starting a search in the home page search box. Also, select Company, People, Group, etc instead of searching all result types 

 B - Go directly into Advance Search and use as many filters as possible to narrow your search results from the start. Keeping your search results at a minimum will give you better results to work with and help to keep you from running into the dreaded Commercial Use Limit. 

Tip # 4 - LinkedIn Boolean Search Function

LinkedIn Search bar works with the Boolean Search functions. Boolean search uses quotation marks and operators such as “AND”, “NOT” and “OR” to refine the search. Using the LinkedIn Boolean Search is the hidden secret. If you want to learn more about this function read LinkedIn Boolean Search Article. Mastering the LinkedIn Boolean Search will make you more productive because you’ll spend less time sorting through big long lists of irrelevant search results. 

Tip # 5 - Hiding Groups 

When you join a Group on LinkedIn you get the option to Hide the Group from your LinkedIn Profile

The hidden secret is that when you hide a Group from your Profile, it also hides your name from non-members when they view Group Members (in their Network). This is important if you are using LinkedIn for purposes different than your company (or wife) thinks you should, in the event they visit the same group. 

I love to write about the best practices, tips and tricks using LinkedIn.

Here is a gift for you - If you have a question that you can’t find the answer for, reach out to me so I can create a new video or blog post with the answer. I'll send it to you and share it with our network.

Teddy Burriss, your LinkedIn Trainer, Coach, Public Speaker.

I provide One-on-one coaching, seminars, webinars and company training programs to businesses and individuals who want to get more from their investment into LinkedIn. 

Learn more by following me on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, Blog 

If you want help to get Focused using LinkedIn, let me coach you - Professional LinkedIn Coaching.