LinkedIn’s “Who’s Viewed Your Profile” feature has been interesting to readers, and it came up again in conversation the other night.
It’s one of those things that gives you information about what other people are doing – and regular readers will know that we spend a lot of time on that sort of subject here!
Let’s have an updated look.
The basics
As I covered back in 2009, the feature let’s users see who has viewed their profile.
And these basic aspects have kept with it:
- You see details about 5 viewers (unless you upgrade to a premium account)
- The viewers determine what you’ll see (name, anonymous info, no info)
- You determine what others see about yourself (same as above)
And the wrinkle from last fall remains:
This feature was fun enough to make last year’s “Favorite Linked Things” video.
Different language
To get today’s article, I did of course have to research into how it’s working right now, and I noticed the phrasing on “opting out” is different.
When I wrote about the change last fall, I mentioned in the article that opting for no information meant that the LinkedIn system wouldn’t even track your activity. That does not appear to be the case. Both the anonymous and no info settings within profile “Settings” say that choosing that selection will disable “Profile Stats”.
Either they decided it was bad to throw that information away, they didn’t want to implement it, or thought that it might reduce the opportunity to upsell… We can’t be certain, but it seems to take away an issue of using the “totally anonymous” setting.
Viewing 40% names, 40% partial, and 20% full anonymity
When I looked at who was viewing my profile, I recognized two names right away. Two out of five is 40%, and this informal and very small sample seems to indicate a good number of LinkedIn users are ok with that level of information flow.
Two users revealed a little bit of information – “Job Title” at “Name of Company”. And LinkedIn provided a handy search link and I could see a list of about a dozen people and it told me that “One of these people viewed your profile”.
Lastly, just one of the five results indicated full anonymity – I have no idea who that was;-)
Additional features
If I really cared, I might opt for the premium account – there are several new aspects to this tool:
- Trending (historical) Views and Search Appearances
- Top search Keywords (that I was found with)
- Viewers by Type (which seems to mean Industry)
- Viewers by Location
It’s very Spy-vs-Spy like – who’s looking at my profile…
Results for you?
I am interested to hear from some of the premium account holders – do you find information about who was looking at your profile useful?
To your continued success,
steve
—
Steven Tylock
http://www.linkedinpersonaltrainer.com
http://www.linkedin.com/in/stevetylock
Don’t bother upgrading if you’re hoping to get more information about who’s viewing your profile. The site continues to give you that 40:40:20 ratio even after you upgrade!
Gareth,
Thanks for the comment – I had thought as much but working without the benefit of actually seeing it, I thought it would be good to hear from a user with those capabilities.
Best regards!
steve
Without upgrading you can only see the last 5 users that viewed you BUT you can always clear that list. Then it starts over so… now the next 5 that view you will show. So I just clear my list sometimes.
Set your preferences so you are anonymous and it clears your profile stats. Then you can immediately change it back and, viola, your list is now empty and ready to capture the next five.
Tim,
Always happy to get tips from readers – that sounds like an interesting twist.
I do have to poke a little – if LinkedIn always shows the last 5 viewers, why would you need to reset? If you come back later, and 2 people had viewed your profile, then they and 3 of the other 5 would be showing…
Perhaps you’re also suggesting – it’s difficult to tell when some of these visits were. If you clear the list and see names, you know those visits were after you cleared the list.
In any case – thanks for commenting and visiting. I’ll have to check this out some more;-)
steve