How to Add Your Contact Information to LinkedIn’s New Profile Template
By • Leave a commentLinkedIn has finally rolled out its new Profile template to all its members. There are things I like about it, such as the ability to condense sections so you don’t have to wade through a member’s 50 groups to get to see the companies they’re following.
But I think LinkedIn is a little sneaky in hiding your Contact Information now. In the old template your contact information, including your company website, was immediately visible in large type under your Professional Headline. Now it’s in small type on a grey background, barely visible to the naked eye. And the only contact information you see is your LinkedIn URL.
My personal view is that LinkedIn is trying to keep your visitors on its site as extra eyeballs for their advertisers. But a Linkedin Profile, while extremely important to have, is no substitute for your own website. Why is it essential to have the name of your website in your LinkedIn profile? Your website represents your brand – what you want to be known for.
Adding Your Contact Information
LinkedIn allows you to add up to three separate links to your contact information. For example, you can link to your website but you might also want to link to your bio or blog posts. In fact, you can link to any URL. You could even link to a live chat agent as reported in a previous post on this site Generate Live Leads Through LinkedIn.
Here are the steps you need to take:
- Under your Professional Headline, click on “Contact Info” to view. You will see one or more fields already populated, depending on the contact information you had previously added to your profile. Add your Twitter account if you haven’t already.
- Click on “view/edit.” In the pop-up window, scroll down to fill in the contact information you want to show up on your profile, such as your email address, phone number and address. You can be selective in what you want to add.
- Under “Add a website or service” click on “Other.” You can include up to three URLs in your Contact Info. Type the name of your website (or other site) in the first box. Type the URL in the second box. Save. Repeat.
- When finished, Click “Save” and “Done editing.”
My website is Write Speak Sell. My blog posts are obvious in the center column. So I’ve used the second website window to link to my Blogs and Social Media page, because that’s what I’m selling. The third window links to my Work With Me page where people can learn more about my approach and services.
Here is how my Contact Information appeared in my old Profile.
My old LinkedIn Contact Information
Here is how my Contact Information appears in my new Profile.
My new LinkedIn Contact Information
In my opinion, the type is too small but we’ll have to live with it.
Good luck!
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As always, very perceptive and useful advice, along with making one think about implications. I immediately checked my LinkedIn profile to check what Jeannette wrote about.
Frank — and I hope you put in your website information!
Jeannette -
Excellent points. I did check out someone’s LinkedIn profile yesterday and did, in fact, find he still had the old version. So I think LinkedIn is still rolling this out in stages, as before with their upgrades.
And, by the way, we lose “Questions” and “Answers” today. LinkedIn is eliminating as they did “Events”. Unfortunate for those of us who have made great use out of it and those who have been striving to become experts as a way to promote themselves..
Michael
Michael Yublosky, MBA recently posted..Easy Steps To Add Rich Media To Your New LinkedIn Profile
Mike — I thought I had read in LinkedIn’s blog that they had rolled the new template out to all their members. Maybe it was in an industry trade and they got it wrong. Their blog did say they were eliminating Answers. It was a good way to promote yourself and also for market intelligence to see the questions that resonated most that might represent trends or business opportunities. Possibly LinkedIn feels their own trends delivered to you based on your interests fills that role and they have control over it.
Thanks for the tip Jeannette. I use the 3 links for 2 free reports I have to offer for the taking and one for my blog. Yes; lots of changes going on there.
Patricia Weber recently posted..Fight Back – Improve The One Thing You CAN Control!
Pat – great idea to use the links for your reports. You can also link to a live customer service agent as I reported in an earlier post http://writespeaksell.com/generate-live-leads-through-linkedin.
Thanks for showing this Jeannette as I haven’t set up my information with the new profile page. Really like the tip about using one link to the blog as I probably wouldn’t have thought of it. I wonder if any of these companies think about the extra time and work their “improvements” are costing us. You on the other hand have saved me time so thank you.
You’re welcome, Susan. It isn’t intuitive to check on “other” to get to where you need to insert the information. LinkedIn has not made the process user-friendly.
Good and useful information Jeannette.
In my case it seems the contact information I have added was actually on display. However, we don’t see it when we look at our own profiles. But when you get into edit my public profile it turned out it was on display.
What I would like to know is how you make the endorsements you have received for skills & expertise show to anyone that clicks on your profile. Do you know how to do that?
Catarina recently posted..Do you turn customers into promoters?
Catarina — I just looked at your profile and all your endorsements are showing under your Skills. When I went to your profile I was asked to endorse the skills you listed. You don’t get that message when you open your own profile, as you point out.
True Jeannette. However, you have to be logged into Linkedin to see them. If you search on a name and his/her Linkedin profile comes up your enorsements don’t show. Just the skills listed. In other words Linkedin wants people to join in order to see everything.:-)
Catarina recently posted..Do you turn customers into promoters?
That’s true. LinkedIn is slowly reducing the number of free features to move members into their Premium membership which is a bit costly. For example, you are limited in the number of slide presentations you can upload and the names of all the people who have viewed your profile. Guess they need to make money, too!
Thanks for this, I hadn’t notice until you brought this to my attention. I have made the changes I need as a result of this. Thank you SOOO much.
Susan Cooper recently posted..Pretzel Crisps! From Snack Factory: Product Review
Susan — my pleasure. Glad to be of help.
My LinkedIn Profile is one area I’ve neglected lately, but thanks to your post, I just went in and updated my contact into. Before I had a link to my website, Facebook author site, and Google+. Now I’ve changed it to link to three different spots on my website: editing services, book review requests, and my blog. Doing so makes total sense as I am gradually establishing my freelance offerings, and LinkedIn needs to reflect that.
Jeri — that’s terrific. I’m glad my post was just the nudge you needed. Sounds like three great links for you.
Interesting. It does make sense that any large company like LinkedIn would work to move things around so that visitors would stay on their site rather than bouncing to others, but that’s a little frustrating seeing as this kind of social media site is supposed to work as a gateway for its users to promote themselves. It is somewhat discouraging to know that a link to your own site will be harder to see and find on your profile but thanks for bringing this to light and sharing how to do it.
Kelly Wade recently posted..Do Body Wraps Work for Weight Loss?
Kelly — I share your frustration. I’m glad I could be helpful in showing your how to retain your own brand instead of the default Company Website.
Jeannette,
I did notice the change in the profiles, that you have to hit the contact info button to see their information. Overall I like the look of the new profile pages and can understand that they need to make money also. We better take advantage as much as we can while things are still free because won’t be much left soon.
Jenn
Jennifer Woodard recently posted..Would You Date Your Blog?
Jenn — I mostly like the new LinkedIn look with the exception of the Contact Info feature which I think LinkedIn “buried” because it would like LinkedIn to be your primary address.
Thanks for the update! I hadn’t really thought about using the multiple links for different parts of my blog. I don’t use LinkedIn enough to notice the change, but I know other people do so I’m glad you wrote this.
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