LinkedIn has added new features to the profile to enhance your visibility. The use of hashtags seems to be changing, this article talks about the future of hashtags.
New buttons have been added to the profile. The first of which is an option to show if you are looking for a job or are hiring.
Looking for a job takes you to the dialogue box that asks you the kind of work you are open to. Here is where you can add the ‘open to work’ banner and indicate if you want all members to see this or just recruiters who have a subscription to LinkedIn recruiter software.
Add a Custom button to your profile for those with a premium account.
If you choose to enable the custom button, you are offered several options to label your button:
- Visit my store
- Visit my website
- Visit my portfolio
- Visit my blog
- Sign up for a demo
You then add a link for the button to point to such as your website. The advantage of the custom button is that it is seen in multiple places and like everything new on LinkedIn it may take time for people to start noticing your button. Current profile showing creator mode turned on and link to my website link.
How to add a custom button:
- go to EDIT your profile and scroll to the bottom
This button then shows up on each post you publish, on your intro card and in messages downside is you can’t have the blue live link when you turn on Creator Mode.
Here is what the button looks like as shown on my friend Lynnaire Johnston’s profile:
You can’t have both a link and a button.
Which should you choose? The new button for premium customers allows you to pick from the list and the creator mode option allows you to customize your text up to 30 characters and add a link.
You decide – and with any new feature, it’s worth testing.
What’s going on with hashtags?
I have noticed when you make a hashtag search by typing #topic in the navigation search bar you no longer get results with the number of followers of that hashtag.
What you will notice, you see results on the left column of options you can see for that hashtag such as posts, jobs, people using that hashtag and people who talk about hat hashtag topic. This is useful if you want to engage with people or posts related to your topic of interest.
We have heard rumors that LinkedIn is no longer giving value to hashtags, but I do not know if this is true. As of the writing, I would continue to add 3-4 hashtags to your posts and follow those hashtags that offer you benefits as I mentioned above, however – searching keywords has always been a more effective tool on LinkedIn because not everyone who posts on LinkedIn use hashtags.
So drop a keyword (which could be the same as a hashtag) into the search box without the # symbol and view your results.
Hashtags and Creator Mode
If you have tuned on Creator Mode, then you have the ability to add 5 hashtags or topics to the top of your profile. Also, you were to get better reach of your posts based on those 5 topics on your profile. Is this still relevant? – I don’t know for sure, but for now, I will post under the assumption that the topics I post about will get that extra reach in the feed.
Save the post with good information
This isn’t new, but worth bringing up because people ask me about things I’ve posted about in the past on a new feature or tips. If you ‘Save’ a post you don’t have time to study and want to go back to, you might want to get into the habit of doing so.
Click on the 3 dots…at the top right of any post and open the drop down menu. Choose the ‘save’ tab.
To view and unsave your saved content:
- Click the Me icon at the top of your LinkedIn homepage, then click View Profile.
- Scroll down to the Resources section and click Show all [number] resources.
- Click My items in the Resources page.
- This section only appears on your profile if you’ve already saved content.
- Click on Saved posts and articles [number of saved posts] from the list under My Items.
Final tip on saving a post – if you include a call to action in the footer of your posts (which you should be) then you might include asking the reader to save the post for future reference.
Work with me to update your profile or create a content strategy. Schedule a free consultation.
