(1) Add Bold, Italic, Bold Italic, Underline, Monospace fonts (and others) ANYWHERE on your LinkedIn profile.
Open up a brand new world of text creativity by using https://coolsymbol.com/cool-fancy-text-generator.html Just type in the box then copy and paste to anywhere in a LinkedIn text field. 86 different fonts to choose from, but remember – just because you can, doesn’t mean that you should. You want folks to react with “How did he do that?” not “Why did he do that?”. Be sure to check how your profile is rendered on different devices when using these fonts, if it looks great on LinkedIn but shite on Android, you can then make an informed decision on when/whether to use them. I like to use this tool to make my content easier to read on LinkedIn posts, here’s an example of my use of bold:
(2) Tag (mention) ANYONE in a post or comment without being connected with them.
The inability to tag LinkedIn users who weren’t 1st degree connections used to be a big frustration of mine. Thankfully, I found a solution. I discovered that the LinkedIn search robot will diligently look for the user – if you give it a little more information. So for my example, I’m going to use Elizabeth Ward as a ‘test’. Elizabeth and I are not connected, as you can see she’s a 2nd Degree ‘connection’. Note her brand is called Virtuoso Legal.
So, let’s say I want to tag Elizabeth, I type in her name and….she doesn’t appear in the suggested list even though LinkedIn search has served up some other 2nd Degree users.
After you’ve typed the name, start to type something that is obvious about the person’s brand/profile (a key identifier, like Employer). So I started to type ‘Vi’ as in ‘Virtuoso Legal‘ and the LinkedIn auto complete is very fast, it presented her immediately in the tag search.
I tested it again with another Elizabeth Ward who’s at Briesen & Roper. She’s a 3rd Degree and also didn’t come up in my initial search on Elizabeth Ward. So I typed her name added ‘Br’ and found her straight away! Pretty cool right?
(3) Change your CONNECT button to FOLLOW.
LinkedIn recently allowed users to switch from this:
To this:
And why is this a good thing? Well, for one it makes it a tad more difficult for people to connect with you, they can still connect but they’re gonna have to look for the connect option (in the More… menu).
Putting this tiny hurdle in place may improve the caliber of your connectors. Secondly you don’t have to do a single thing when people follow you; you don’t have to accept/ignore, it’s perfect for busy people who are not on LinkedIn all day. Thirdly, your network count will still increase when people follow because LinkedIn insists on co-mingling connections and followers. Fourthly, think of followers as potential connections, think of having a Follow button as a sign that indicates that you’re kinda fussy/particular about how you build your network. LinkedIn previously only allowed Influencers to have the Follow button, now doesn’t that make you feel a wee bit special?
Here’s how to change your button to ‘Follow’: go to the LinkedIn mobile app, click on ‘Settings’ (small cog/gear icon top right), click on ‘Privacy’ tab, scroll down to ‘Who can follow you’ and select the ‘Make follow primary’ option.
You can also change to a Follow button on LinkedIn desktop (Settings > Privacy > Blocking and hiding). Thanks for pointing this out Atena Juszko!
(4) Change the CTA (call to action) on your HIGHLIGHTS section.
A mobile-only hack, which is a pretty interesting decision on LinkedIn’s part, given how important this section is. Oh – and you can’t see this section but your browsers can!
This is what your Highlights section looks like. The stuff on the left is auto-generated, you can’t edit it. My connection Alexander Low messaged me and asked if he could change the call to action on the right. This is what his looked like:
This is what mine looks like:
To change your Highlights, hop on to the mobile app, click on ‘View Profile’, scroll all the way down to ‘Reach out to [Your name] for and then click on the blue pencil icon. You’ll see 9 options in the next screen (you can choose a max of 3 interests). Click save and you’re done!
(5) Get an EXTENDED HEADLINE on your LinkedIn profile.
Second and final mobile-only hack. You are limited to 120 characters for your headline on the desktop. But for some strange reason you can enter an extra long headline of up to 200 (or so) characters if you edit it on the mobile version of LinkedIn. How crazy is that? Here’s an example of an extra long headline:
Janet’s headline comes in at 162 characters, she was able to grab 42 extra characters because she edited her headline on mobile. Now, I’m not suggesting everyone does this because that headline gets cut off in some LinkedIn pages (probably why LinkedIn set it at 120) but if you’re dying to get some extra space for your calling card on LinkedIn, mobile is how it’s done.
(6) Add an INCOGNITO toggle to your Chrome web browser and surf LinkedIn in private mode in seconds!
Trever Faden has built a Chrome web browser extension that puts an on/off toggle for anony (private) browsing directly on to your LinkedIn profile. I’ve been trying it out, works great. Wondering how he did it but more importantly, why LinkedIn doesn’t offer this?
What’s really cool apart from not having to deal with the chore of changing Settings (8 clicks) every time you switch to and from private mode, is that using this toggle doesn’t mess with your browsing history – you’ll still see all of your profile browsers. That’s huge.
1. Go to http://bit.ly/chromeincognitoextension
2. Add Chrome extension
3. Close Chrome, restart Chrome
4. You’ll see the toggle top right of your page. Pretty neat, huh?
This is what it looks like:
(7) Stand out from the crowd when you are GROUP TAGGED.
A lot of people ask me about the dots in my name and like most things I do on LinkedIn, there’s usually method to the apparent madness. So instead of explaining the rationale for those flanking dots, I’ll just share a few screenshots to demonstrate my big picture thinking:
….Plenty of elbow room….
(8) ANIMATE your LinkedIn Company Page logo by making it a GIF.
As a rule LinkedIn doesn’t let you animate much of anything on your LinkedIn profile – except your Company Page logo. Really simple to do, either (a) do it yourself by using one of the many gif making sites (https://media.giphy.com is a good one) or (b) make your logo into a GIF by using a cool (and free) tool like GIMP (https://www.gimp.org) or (c) hire a designer to make a nice GIF logo for you. Once you have a GIF of your logo that works in that tiny (300×300) space, go to the overview of your Co Page and click on ‘Admin View’, ‘Update Page’ and load your new logo. Here’s what mine looks like:
A good way to catch an extra millisecond of attention and sends the message that you are ‘cutting edge’ and using the platform to the fullest extent. [update: this hack is currently not available, but it still works for the people who jumped on it and made the change. The animated logo doesn’t animate on IOS but apparently does animate on Android devices, for now…].
nb. Leverage these hacks while you can, because the only constant on LinkedIn is change and loopholes can slam shut suddenly…
READY TO GO DEEP ON THE LINKEDIN ALGORITHM?
I’ve written a comprehensive guide which will help you to understand how content is treated on LinkedIn. Publishing on LinkedIn without adequately knowing how the algorithm works, is like sitting in a Volkswagen Beetle on a starting grid flanked by Porsches. The objective of this article is to put you in a Porsche, maybe even a Tesla. Start your engines.
The LinkedIn Algorithm Explained In 25 Frequently Asked Questions
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This was so helpful that I actually felt the need to comment on an article for the first time. Well done!
Some really great stuff here, Andy – thank you! Love the incognito Chrome hack, definitely something LI should come up with. Also, thanks for the ‘elbow room’ explanation – I’ve been wondering about that for a while now! 🙂
Thanks Rachel 🙂
This is powerful and useful. Thank you!
Thanks Aashish!
Bravo!
There are some useful ideas here; for example, I didn’t know about changing “connect” to “follow” at my profile. This will save me a lot of time checking the profiles of people who send connection invitations since I ignore 2/3 of them.
When I see boldface, italics, emojis and other effects in a profile or a newsfeed post it drives me nuts. I think it looks unprofessional and unsophisticated.
The tagging feature only works about 20% of the time for me, even on 1st level connections. Also, as a reader, rather than tagging dozens of people, send them an InMail with a loink to your post. It’s just as effective and doesn’t clutter up the item or the comments. Likewise, the hashtag feature is useless. I seldom see anything in my feed because of the handful of tags that I follow or use.
People have the ability in “settings” to browse in private without adding an extension to their browser. In any event, I use the Brave.com browser (and DuckDuckGo search engine) because it doesn’t track what users do online.
Hi Andy, Thank you for the Chicago / Speed Dating commentary. I sent your article to a friend of mine that was using the Pittsburgh Steelers logo as his profile pick. He has no affiliation to the team and I have been on him to change it for a while. I think your post did the trick. Definitely appreciate your help!
Thanks Sam.
Unfortunately #4 and #5 aren’t working for me at least on my Android phone and tablet … I tried via both the app and bringing up the site in Chrome and Firefox, but in all of those, the Reach out … doesn’t appear, and it either won’t let me enter extra characters in my headline in the first place, or won’t let me save them.
Sorry to hear that you’re having difficulty with those 2 hacks Tané, some things (clickable urls on the LinkedIn profile) only work on Android. But as I said in the article #4 and #5 are mobile-only, so no point trying to do them on desktop (Chrome, Firefox etc.). Quick solution for you = borrow a friend’s IOS device 🙂
nice article Andy, tried uploading the gif logo though and Linkedin told me it was an unsupported file type. Changed already?
Changed already Gareth – though people who did this, still benefit from this hack…the early bird catches (and keeps) the worm, for now.
Hi, I can’t find “reach out to” section on my LI profile. How can I find/add it?
Did you look on mobile Pawel?
Great post, Andy – why didn’t you share this under ‘articles’ on your LI profile? I’m sure there’s logic behind it…just wondering which?
Thanks Jochen. Mainly because I want google to know where the content originated but also because I don’t like the idea of publishing on ‘rented land’.
Thanks for compiling and sharing these LinkedIn hacks ….Andy…. 🙂
You are very welcome ….Mark…. 🙂
Apparently one can no longer upload a GIF logo to one’s business page. BUMMER!
I’ve heard that a number of people can’t load a GIF on to their Co Page logo Chris, so it seems that for the time at least, LinkedIn have closed the door on this opportunity, which is obviously a shame. The lucky few still have it (for now). It obviously pays to be the ‘early bird’…
Spot on, Andy. Since winning Doctor LinkedIn’s inaugural Grand Prix Profile award, everyone wants to connect. But I’m not a LION and never want to be. Making [Follow] the default is terrific.
I knew some of the others, but am also intrigued by the GIF idea.
Thanks Chris. The LION (LinkedIn Open Networking) approach is not something I’d recommend either, I’ve written about why on this here blog 🙂
I could not see the follow option in the mobile app, Andy (Samsung Galaxy 7) but on the desktop, under Privacy -> Blocking and Hiding -> Followers, I found a “Make follow primary” option, which was off, by default I’m guessing, and toggled it on.I’ll have to ask someone to check and see what’s there!
Thanks Des, yes I think that the Follow button is off by default. I just checked your profile – it is now set to ‘Follow’ 🙂
Great info – thank you!
Thanks Diane 🙂
Thank you, Andy! I truly liked idea of elbowing the space within Linkedin universe
Thank you Leva.
Great article, thank you Andy…. 👍
I have just tested a few out and noticed you can actually add symbols from coolsymbol.com to your name too (but not from your keyboard normally – LinkedIn says it doesn’t allow ‘special characters’ . (You have …. ANDY FOOTE…. but you can also add symbols (where appropriate of course), such as ✿ Emma Pearce ✿).
We have used https://emojipedia.org for copying emojis into social posts too. I think using the bold text or similar does add some extra characters where there is a character count – but very useful to know about.
Thanks again
Thanks Emma, I’m not a fan of symbols or other emoticons anywhere on the LinkedIn profile, I think they’re too distracting. I advise my clients to focus on their message (substance over style) and let the words do the talking.
Yes indeed… could definitely be overused… interesting to test what was possible!
Just noticed that the bold text does not work when viewed on Android – great on iPhone… sadly we hit this same problem with a way of doing this on Facebook too (seemed great but no luck on Android – https://www.pearcemarketing.co.uk/add-bold-text-facebook-posts/)
Thanks Emma. Yes, there does seem to be an issue with text rendering on Android, which is weird (I’m sure there’s a good technical reason why this is the case – but I don’t know it).
Those “cool fonts” are usually pretty toxic for anyone using a screenreader or other assistive device to browse the web, those are symbols for specific purposes being misused to look fancy…so maybe not the best idea.
That’s a very good point Jon – thank you for raising this and informing readers about this downside.
Very good tips. Please note regarding the Font generator that it consumes a few more characters, likely for the font coding in the background. So for sections where we are already near the maximum allowed, it might call to reduce some text.
thanks, Mario
Thank you, yes the font hack does consume more characters than LinkedIn’s default set and also, folks who use these fonts should check to see what they look like on both IOS and Android, some are illegible. Please test!
These are some really great hacks Andy! Thanks a ton!
Thanks for commenting Tejshree AND for sharing this article on LinkedIn 🙂 🙂 🙂
Great post …Andy 🙂 love these tips 🙂
Thank you Junaid Ahmed 🙂
Thanks Andy, there is always something for everyone to learn from your posts including finally getting an explanation for your dots!
Ha! I thought you figured the dots out days after I added ’em Greg! Thanks bud 🙂
I usually raise my eyes to the sky when I see any xx LinkedIn hacks posts but as it was you Andy I thought it might be worth a look 🤔. As usual, I wasn’t disappointed 👍.
I hear you Steve, thankfully not all X LinkedIn hacks posts are equal. Grateful as always for your kind words and support 🙂
My pleasure Andy. Thanks for letting me know about the comment spam issue, so glad you were able to add your (very kind) comment.