Do you use LinkedIn for research? If so you might want to hide your LinkedIn profile views.
I find the ‘people who viewed your profile’ section on LinkedIn fascinating and I often wonder where these people came from. Maybe they liked one of my updates, found me through a connection or advanced search.
[Tweet “Being anonymous on LinkedIn has its advantages”]
Knowing that people can see when you’ve viewed their profile is cool too. If you want to stay in touch with someone you don’t always have to drop them an email or a message. When they see that you have visited their profile it will get them thinking about you.
But what if you want to review a profile a lot? What if you are doing competitive research or trying to find out who has a specific role in a company? It may not be advantageous for people to know you have been visiting their profile in this case. If you want be anonymous on LinkedIn this video shows you how.
There is a downside. When you go anonymous on LinkedIn you are also limiting what you can see about who visits your profile. If you go completely anonymous you won’t be able to see any information about those who look at your profile. If you choose the semi-anonymous option you will see limited information.
For this reason I go anonymous whilst researching (or teaching) and toggle back to full profile mode when I’m finished.
Your Turn
Do you like seeing who has been viewing your profile on LinkedIn? Would you prefer to be anonymous all the time? Do you use LinkedIn for research? I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments.
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It’s a handy tip alright Amanda, I have to admit I rarely use it but it can be handy when checking out competitors etc.
It’s really useful when training… stops people wondering why I’m stalking them 🙂
I rarely use it though find it amusing when people go semi anon “this person works in the food industry” as then have a guessing game about who they might be. I’m more likely to use it if I’m updating my own profile and looking for ideas as to the best things to say in it.
Why not let a competitor know you’ve looked at them? What do you have to hide? Are you stealing their branding or something? If you know they’re a competitor – they probably know you’re a competitor. Also, the market is probably much bigger than both of you. There’s probably room for both of you? You both share an interest in growing the market – so have a basis for collaborating?
I guess I was being a bit tongue in cheek with my title. If I’m doing research I don’t always want the person I’m looking at to know I have been. In my case that’s rarely competitive research but it can help. It can also help if you need to look at profiles on a regular basis, it stops me looking like a stalker.
Yes I always find that an odd choice but I’m sure they have their reasons for doing it.
In a perfect world, I’d like to be able to view people’s profiles anonymously and see everyone who viewed my profile, but that’s not going to happen. I think LinkedIn’s rules are pretty clearcut and it’s easy to stay within them. I knew a Lawyer who wouldn’t let anyone see his network as he thought it was “trade secret”.
I often wonder why people hide their networks. Maybe they’ve had a bad experience.
I’ve always wondered if there’s a way to do this. It’s a very useful tip. I look up people all the time and yes, it can feel like I am stalking them.
I have to say somebody regularly looks at my profile every 4-5 days as “an anonymous user” so I know someone has viewed my profile but not who they are… It’s really creepy and really starting to bother me!
It could be a number of anonymous users of course 🙂
Thanks Marie, glad I’m not alone 🙂