The Importance of LinkedIn Profile View Data

“Okay, summer is over, Nigel. Your LinkedIn Profile views have never been lower – get your act together, pal!”

In my experience, if you want to get views on your LinkedIn profile, you need to be more active. There is a direct correlation between my activity and the number of people who view my profile. Whenever I go quiet, by posting less and maybe commenting less, my profile views drop! When I increase my activity, they pick back up again!

It’s not quite like turning on a tap, but it’s very close.

Whenever I get busy with less time to engage, I’m effectively turning down the interest I generate. That’s why it’s important to keep finding time to post: finding more time creates more opportunities.

LinkedIn Profile View Data

Now, here are a couple of things to note about Profile View Data:

First, does LinkedIn show who viewed your profile? Yes, it does!

If you go to your LinkedIn homepage, click on ‘Who viewed your profile’ in the left-hand bar, then click on ‘Show trends’, you can find your trends graph, like so:

And because I have an upgraded LinkedIn account, I also have the privilege of seeing all those people who have viewed my profile in the last 90 days. I can visit this page at any time and see all those new visitors.

However, if you have a LinkedIn FREE account, you’ll only see the last five people to view your profile. Therefore, even if you get a lot of visitors, you’ll still miss a lot of them unless you check this page very frequently.

And that’s some important data to miss, right?

Why does this matter?

To me, it’s like being a shopkeeper and ignoring the people who peer into your shop.

Suppose that someone visits me that I might like to build a relationship with. I might decide to return the courtesy and look at their profile. If they fit my ideal customer profile, I might take the relationship further by Following them or requesting to Connect.

If someone is viewing me on LinkedIn, it could mean that:

• People I met at a networking event are checking me out.
• A lapsed client is checking in with me.
• Senior executives of an organisation are checking out an outstanding quote for LinkedIn Training, building trust in their decision to appoint me.

The list goes on…

One more tip…

Some people do not see the last five people to view their profile. For them, the whole thing is greyed out and blurred.

These people have their ‘profile viewing options’ set to ‘Private mode’. You can find this in Settings & Privacy, under ‘Visibility’.

On a LinkedIn free account, ‘Private mode’ means others can’t see you viewing their profile – and you can’t see them viewing yours. Change it back to ‘Your name and headline’, and you can see who is viewing your profile again. Or you could pay to upgrade your LinkedIn account, allowing you to set it to ‘Private mode’ and see your visitors at the same time.

The bottom line

For me, this data alone is reason enough to get LinkedIn Premium. It helps me convert profile viewers into clients!

In the last quarter alone, using data from the Shield App, I have generated over 51,000 post views on LinkedIn, with 495 Likes and 435 Comments from 7 posts. My Followers have increased by 4%, and my net engagement rate is 1.95%. I would say this is the best form of marketing I could generate to build my brand and therefore my business.

By recognising my activity had dropped due to my drop in visitors, I decided to up my game and post a little more to bring more value to my target audience – those who want to learn to use LinkedIn more successfully.

Now it’s your turn. How are your LinkedIn profile stats looking? Who is visiting you and checking out your profile?