How Popular Are You On LinkedIn?

Everyone can agree that one of the best features of LinkedIn is the ability to see who’s viewed your profile. It gives you all a little thrill knowing that someone’s checking us out- especially if they are potential clients, partners, journalist etc. Well to add some spice into the mix, LinkedIn has recently added another nifty feature, which will only serve to stroke the ego a little more.

A cool new feature called “How You Rank” as part of its “Who’s Viewed Your Profile” section. It lets you see how you stack up to other people in your network when it comes to profile views.

The idea is that you’ll be able to see which of your connection’s profiles gets the most views so that you can get ideas for how to amp up your own. The ranking is based on total profile views in the last 30 days.

It’s a quick and easy way to tell just how visible you and your company are on the network, and exactly how you can raise that visibility. As a business owner, you can get a better idea what keywords are leading people to you and expand your influence.

Included in this update next to the rankings is a list of ways to increase your profile views- such as suggestions of groups to join, as well as ways your profile can be improved. From LinkedIn’s perspective, this could prove to be a great incentive for you to become more active on LinkedIn.

But what’s in it for you?

It’s all good and well to feel warm and fuzzy when you see that you’re in the top 10, 5 or even 1% most viewed profiles within your network but… Ultimately if that is not helping you lock down deals, grow your business or build your influence within your industry then what good is it?

Popularity, though good for the ego, does not always equal success especially when the people in your network don’t know who you are, is non-targeted and unqualified. And there lies the biggest barrier to effectively using this feature.

Over 90% of the business owners we speak with over time have accumulated a network of connections they don’t even know by randomly accepting invitation request from strangers. Below is a common discussion seen amongst most LinkedIn members, quite funny and true.

Now we’re sure you would agree that there is no point ranking in the top 1% for profile views among your connections if those connections don’t know who you are or have a relationship with you. Before you start looking to deep into this, below we’ve provided you a few suggestions for you to consider about this feature:

1)   Sit down and figure out what your marketing objectives are over the next 6 to 12 months and write them down.
2)   Then think about the type of people you need to connect with to achieve those goals.
3)   Once you are crystal clear on your target market, start going out there and connecting with them to build your sales funnel.
4)   And then finally build a relationship with your contacts by sending them relevant and rich content to establish that trust and rapport with your network.

In doing so, not only do you start building a more qualified network of contacts but your popularity within your network grows which in turn increases how you rank within your network. Building your personal brand is something that takes time and consistency to achieve results. If you think you’re not going to have the time to stay consistent then you need to either find the time or find someone who can implement on your behalf so you can begin investing in your most important asset – you.