How to share an update on LinkedIn
Wouldn’t it be great if there was a quick simple way to share a message with your entire network? Something for them to choose to read, nothing pushy, nothing that would be emailed to them or bug them? Well you can – it’s called a status update.
On your LinkedIn home page you can find the “share an update” at the top of your home page when you log in. If you have a photograph on your profile (and you really should) click on the purple speech marks share an update box underneath. If you don’t have a photograph then it is the purple speech marks under the white box with a grey outline in it where your photograph should be!
If you click on the speech marks then it opens up like this:
Anything you type into this box will appear to all of the people you are connected with at level one, i.e. the people you have invited to connect or vice versa for them to choose to read.
For example:
It is worth bearing in mind it automatically starts with your name so in my case “James Potter ” so remember to start with “is” or something similar or it will look odd. The good news is also if someone comments or “likes” your status update it gets shown to all their connections too! And all your connections can also see their comments so it starts a conversation and spreads the news.
If you’re connected to 500 people and you do a status message every working day for a month, you will have impressed your value and your message 10,000 times or more, assuming no one interacts, so if people comment or like it it goes to even more exponentially.
To make it an even richer source of insight about you and what you’re up to you can also include photograph (if what you do is visual this is ideal), a URL / web link, a blog post or an interesting website. See below for an example:
You can even click on and edit all of the text in the name and body to make it more appealing when someone views it.
So now you have a bespoke personalised message, just like the one below to share with everyone you are directly connected with (at level one) on your LinkedIn network. Just like the final example below:
So if you want to keep in touch with your network, make them aware of what you are up to, the value and range of products, services and expertise you offer start talking to people using your status updates.
For more tips like this please check out the blog here but if you want to learn even more about making status updates work or to make LinkedIn work for you check out our courses or just get in touch.
Thanks for this reminder James. I remember I used to do this a lot but then I concluded that few of my first level connections actually looked at their home page.
Is there a way to know how many people you have reached in reality rather than only in theory? And how long does an update remain viewable by connections? I assume from your encouragement that updates here last longer than tweets on Twitter. True?
This is a very surface overview of how to do an update as you can share with first level connections and also a wider audience depending on how you configure it. With over half of LinkedIn users logging in each day I suspect a few people might see it Mark, but timing, style and type of message plays a part. On all three levels of courses we run we probably spend a couple of hours teaching status alone, so whilst on the surface it is easy and everyone should do it, like most of LinkedIn there is more beneath the surface when you look. In terms of who has seen it there is a count at the top of your home page each day, the number of people that have seen your message on their home page, just above or below your “who’s viewed your profile”. Viewability (if you like) is dependent on timing, how many connections that person has and how they view their home page (you can use two formats you see) and this impacts the time your status might stay on their screen. Not a quick answer as you can see 🙂 Have a great week and thanks for the comment. Best wishes, James – The Linked In Man
Ha – you have 40 people waiting to connect with you. Do you know how to share a share an update? I have an ‘update’ that a massive number of people are liking – so I would like to share that – but can’t work out how to create a url to share. I can see how to get a URL using published posts. With facebook I click on the time stamp.
Sorry Heather, I missed your comment previously. If you click on the update under your red activity flag (top right) when there is interaction it takes you to a page and hence URL that you can then reshare. However, if you just comment or say thank you to others for likes or comments it will reshare it automatically with your connections anyway 🙂 Hope that helps? Best wishes, James – The Linked In Man
I am curious about sharing on LinkedIn. Whenever I view other peoples updates they are gone within like 1 minute because all of the rest of the shares push them down the page.
When I post a Share however I can see that on average it gets about 100 views in a couple of days and this number increases slightly for about 5 days afterwards.
I am wondering where do these views come from? With other peoples shares only lasting about 1 minute on my page due to other updates how is it that over 100 people manage to view mine?
If the time window to view the share is 1 minute, then how can 100 of my connections view it within that 1 minute timeframe?
The priority of updates is not based purely on timeline but on engagement with comments and likes too. This impacts how often it is seen and hence the impressions on the home page you see. The best thing to do is regularly post a status update, once per day is ideal and see how your message engages people, try to test different types of message, pictures, rich media and more to vary content and hopefully results too. Thanks for the comment. Best wishes, James – The Linked In Man
Thanks James.
You’re very welcome, best wishes, James – The Linked In Man