Following in Stealth Mode

NOTE: Due to LinkedIn's redesigning of the user experience in the years since I wrote this, there are some obsolete items in this article. I'll be correcting them soon. -sc

Let's say that someone has posted some questionable material on LinkedIn about you, a colleague, or for that matter, anyone of interest. The material is defamatory or objectionable and you expect it to be deleted. You wouldn't even be surprised if the person who posted the material incurs a profile suspension.

Let's call that alleged offender Person X. That person is your target whom you want to surveil in stealth mode.

Surveillance in 'stealth mode'

How do you follow a person like that without getting on X's radar? This is a person you would not want a Connection to, nor do you want to Follow them. You don't want to call attention to yourself by frequent visits to his or her profile. You also don't want to Like or Comment on their content; that would just spread their venom around your network.

Not all is cloak-and-dagger stuff

I've hyped this whole article with intrigue and stealthy spy trappings. (Did I hook you in?) But you can use these tips in more innocent scenarios, too. Let's say you distrust the LinkedIn notification mechanism and feel that you are not getting told of new updates and posts by people you want to know about. Rather than hoping to catch the notifications of new content from people you are connected to or following, seeing that it will continually get pushed down in your feed, you can use the tips I show you to check on what they have posted whenever you want.

The LinkedIn profile URL is key

One visit to the person's profile will give you the direct Linkedin URL of the individual. It will be in the form https://www/linkedin.com/in/x.

Now, I'm not going to let on the identity of any particular person I have an eye on as a "target." There could be no such person, and this would all be hypothetical! So let's use someone else: https://www.dhirubhai.net/in/jeffweiner08 .

I use the site's CEO because everybody knows who he is and when I say you want to grab the value of x from your target, everybody "gets it." Take whatever follows the last slash (/) in the URL (in this case, jeffweiner08) and save it. Write it down or put it into a document. Use an electronic document especially if it's a default pattern URL ending in a string of random character like joe-jones-23a45b67cd.

Once you have the value of x, you can track any updates and articles posted by your target without the need to visit his or her profile again. Past that first visit, you need not show up again in your target's Who's Viewed Your Profile. You'll also save time because you'll have no need to scroll through your home page feed looking for your target's activity.

Your target's posted articles and activity show in special URLs

You can see a catalog of all long-form articles a person has posted on LinkedIn if you surf to a URL with the pattern www.dhirubhai.net/today/author/x.

A person's recent activities are listed at www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/activites/x. These will include any likes, commenting, or sharing they make of others' content.

So using Mr. Weiner again, where x = 'jeffweiner08,' the pattern for his posted articles yields a link of https://www.dhirubhai.net/today/author/jeffweiner08 .

My own value of x will yield more recent results. Sorry to inflict my face on you again.

NOTE: SCREENSHOT BELOW IS OUT-OF-DATE.

Note that the screen above gives you a display of all a person's long-form articles, aka Posts. The link Recent Activity will take you to the same information as found on the update/activities path shown below.

Publishing includes making an update

In the latest style of publishing articles, LinkedIn makes an update when you publish the article. Updates are contained in a member's Recent Activity display. It is important to note that we are talking about two different items here:

1. The long-form article.
2. The update that announces it.

NOTE: SCREENSHOT BELOW IS OUT-OF-DATE.

For what it may be worth to you, try these tricks out on people you see posting and let us know if you see anything more than what I've found. If you ever see a posted article that is far less than 30 days old, but there is no update announcing it, I'd like your opinion of what is going on.

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Thanks very much for reading; please Like, Comment on, or Share this post if you find it of value and contribute any observations or corrections that you wish. All the articles of mine are here ---> https://www.dhirubhai.net/today/author/sidclark.