Adding LinkedIn Details To Your Own Web Page

So you’d like to add your LinkedIn blurb to your own web page – that ought to be easy, right?

Well if you asked me years ago, I’d have given you a big old “good luck with that” response, but LinkedIn has added reasonable hooks to enable you to do just that.

And it is easy – I’ll show you how right here!

What’s this thing called “html”?

First – this topic may not be for everyone.

HTML is the name of the markup language for web pages. It’s instructions to web browsers that indicate which text should be green, blue, red, bold, italic, underlined, and even crossed off.

Many editing tools display the results of the markup language, but save documents in html form and this lets individual users can create web pages without knowing the specifics of the language.

The LinkedIn Member Profile widget

LinkedIn has created a simple process (a java script) to enable individuals and organizations to add LinkedIn content.

You can find the instructions I’m going to use on the LinkedIn Development Network: Member Profile page.

On this page I was able to enter my public profile link and get code to add my profile to a page. Here’s the code:

<script src="http://platform.linkedin.com/in.js" type="text/javascript"></script>
<script type="IN/MemberProfile" data-id="http://www.linkedin.com/in/stevetylock"
  data-format="inline"></script>

The key thing to note is that it’s got my profile link in there – you’ll need to use your own profile link to get your profile displayed;-)

You can see the results of this on a modified copy of my “Free Tip Sheet” page.

The rest is just what you have to include to make it all happen. (I’d include the example on this page, but the intricacies of javascript within WordPress are cumbersome enough that I don’t want to go through that effort – it is possible, but you probably don’t want to do it yourself unless you happen to be a web programmer…-)

Issues and Options

I was a bit unhappy to see the results – it uses my job titles instead of my headline, and I just can’t figure out why they would do that. (As regular readers will know, I think we’re all much more than job titles)

And I was unsuccessful in searching for options to fix that. It is what it is.

The LinkedIn Develop Network page appears to give the user choice in showing connections or not. While this results in slightly different html code, the data displayed does not change – it doesn’t work.

I’ll keep an eye out in case they correct this and make an update if I notice something.

To create a similar listing for a company, use the LinkedIn Developer Network: Company Profile page.

Full access possible

If you’re interested, you can add code to allow individuals to login to their LinkedIn account and access information through a slightly more complex environment.

Me, I’m happy to build slightly simpler plugins for myself, my company, and clients.

To your continued success,

steve
—
Steven Tylock
http://www.linkedinpersonaltrainer.com
http://www.linkedin.com/in/stevetylock