Settings Part 2- Privacy

Welcome to LinkedInformed 263.

This week I continue with my tutorial on settings with probably the most important section of all – Privacy

But before that…

Interesting Stuff I Saw This Week

• Closing the Network Gap (the Plus One Pledge)
• Welcome to LinkedIn! A (satirical) tutorial to our features

Feedback from previous episodes

Paolo Lanciani sent in a voice message with a potential explanation to not being able to delete comments on Articles as featured in the AFQ section in episode 261. Paolo’s theory is that it could be to prevent the author from deleting comments that highlight a copyright infringement.

I think Paolo might be giving LinkedIn too much credit here! If you need to report a copyright infringement, the facility to do so is the ‘report this’ link at the bottom of any Article. I totally agree with his view that posts are discussions/chat whereas Articles are for credibility/authority and will be viewed once you have someones attention. His point about the headline and cover image being so important is also very valid.

Regarding last weeks episode, Mark Lee sent in this message

My response: I noticed that my mobile settings had changed last week after I recorded the episode which might explain why this happened.

The Find Nearby feature is still not working properly, we are back to the new design but you can’t leave it on all the time (which is a shame) but the most annoying thing is at least 50% of people are not seeing anyone in the list!

Sales Navigator has it’s ‘posted in the last 30 days’ filter back which is great news. The frustration is that the whole episode would have been so much easier for everyone if they had simply sent out an alert (as per my mockup below) to all Sales Navigator users.

Something I’m Pondering

Double Impact – this is how I describe the effect when two people you follow undertake actions which result in a post appearing in your feed.

Pete Davies when commenting about his algorithm article mentioned that following a hashtag that is used in a post written by someone you also follow, doubles the chance of you seeing it in your feed….doubles!

I’ve since noticed a trend towards a high percentage of posts in my feed being there because of double impact, such as;

• Like or comment from someone I follow on a post from someone I follow
• Multiple Likes/comments by more than one person I follow
• Posts from those I follow that include a hashtag I follow
• A reshare from someone I follow of a post from someone I follow

Have you seen any other examples?

I guess this just further emphasises the importance of activity and making sure your posts are highly relevant and engaging.

Privacy Settings

To get to your settings;

Desktop

> Click on the ‘Me’ menu

> Select Privacy & Settings

Mobile

> Tap on the small round profile pic top left

> Tap View profile

> Tap on the cog – top right

Now you will see there are four sections. Account, Privacy, Ads and Communications.

This week I cover the first half of the second section – Privacy

Note – Mobile settings cover most of the same features as desktop settings but you may find them in a different order.

• Edit your public profile
• Alter your public profile url
• Make sure your picture is visible to ‘Public’ – the default is your connections.
• Who can see your email address. The default setting is just your connections but you can change this to anyone to make you more accessible. You can also allow people to include your email in their connections download if you wish, the default is they can’t.
• Who can see your connections. Default is all of your connections can but (if you want to be a bad networker!) you can switch this off.
• Viewers of this profile also viewed. By default, this is on but to prevent competitors appearing by your profile, you can switch it off.
• Who can see your last name. If you wish you can change this to ust be seen by your first name and surname initial
• Representing your organisation and interests. This refers to your company using your profile in ads, company page etc.
• Profile visibility off LinkedIn. Control whether 3rd part apps (such as MS Outlook) you have given permission to access your account can show your profile in their app. For instance, Outlook will show your profile to an email recipient (provided they used your LinkedIn email address)
• Microsoft Word. There is a feature in Word called Resume assistant – by default, the words and phrases used in your profile could be used as suggestions to someone writing their CV/resume. By default, this is on and it’s harmless in my opinion but you can switch it off.
• Profile viewing options – one of the most important settings. To be successful on LinkedIn you MUST increase your visibility but the default setting does not allow people to see that you have viewed their profile…..crazy! This should be changed to fully visible but you could change it occasionally, at the point of viewing a profile, to anonymous if you feel it’s necessary for commercial reasons. It’s also important to note that on a free account you can only see who viewed your profile if your setting is fully visible.
• Manage active status. This refers to the green dot we see at the bottom right of profile photos. If there is a green dot we know they are currently on LinkedIn online, the green circle means they have notification switched on for LinkedIn on the mobile app, so whilst they might not be active online, they are likely to see a message or notification. Here you can decide whether you just want your connections to see the dot, everyone on LinkedIn (default) or nobody. I would advise having this set to everyone to make sure you’re more accessible but there may be occasions where you switch it off because you need to focus and don’t wish to encourage messages.
• Share job and educational changes and work anniversaries. This setting previously caused problems in that your connections would get pestered with notifications every time you made a change to your profile so many people switched it off. It, however, has improved considerably now and will only notify once….this can actually be beneficial to you as I have known people win business just because this notification triggered, an enquiry!
• Mentions/Tags by others. This allows you to prevent other people from tagging you in their post. This is best left at the default ‘on’. If you are @mentioned in a post that you don’t want to be involved with then you can remove the tag by clicking on the 3 dots at the top of the post. This setting means nobody can ever tag you which is probably not in your interests

I mentioned that John Esperian has a 50% off code for Shield App which is SHIELDLOVESJOHN that lets you have Shield, which I find invaluable for analysing my posts performance, for just $4/month

This weeks post of the week was actually nominated by Andreas Jonsson from Shield!

This text only post has great structure, the first five lines draw you in but it’s not clickbait because what you see when you click on ‘see more’ is great advice, laid out in an easy to consume format. Whilst I’m happy to feature light, less business orientated posts, it’s nice to showcase a more serious post that has done really well.

Another nomination was this post, it’s noteworthy because it’s gained a lot of engagement and views and yet it includes an external link! A rare find indeed and worth making note of. I have no way of knowing this but I’m slightly suspicious that it could be pod boosted, hence why the external link had a less negative impact. It’s an interesting post though and the comments thread is definitely worth a browse.

That’s all for this week, have a productive week ahead and I look forward to catching up with you again soon.