LinkedIn Profile Archives

Attention is the real capital in this day and age. Being noticed in a sea of information in a distracted world is considered to be a privilege. To stand out, you must take what you have to the next level. The same rules apply to your LinkedIn headline.

However, figuring out a LinkedIn headline can feel like navigating a maze for many folks, and let's be real, some platform members aren't even sure what it is or where to find it on their profile.

That's why we're here to break it down for you in plain language and give you some practical suggestions and LinkedIn headline examples that work from our own experience.

These tips have helped our sales team stand out on LinkedIn, improve rankings and visibility in LinkedIn search results, and ultimately gain more credibility and more quality leads for Skylead.

Let’s check it out how it’s done!

What is a LinkedIn headline?

A LinkedIn headline is the text below your name in your profile's introduction. It's a vital section of your profile because it impacts your ranking in LinkedIn searches and plays a crucial part in forming the first impression. When well-written, a LinkedIn headline is a prime eye-catcher in search results.

This is your LinkedIn headline.

How to edit a LinkedIn headline

You can edit your LinkedIn headline as many times as you want, although it is recommended to keep some consistency and not to change it too often.

The maximum length of your LinkedIn headline is 220 characters.

Edit your LinkedIn headline by clicking on the Pen icon right here.

Then, scroll down to the LinkedIn headline section.

As you may see, you can insert it manually, or use LinkedIn’s AI assistant to suggest LinkedIn headlines for you. This feature is available only for paid LinkedIn plans.

If you click on the Write with AI option, LinkedIn will suggest a LinkedIn headline for you based on the information on your LinkedIn profile.

You can ask it to generate a LinkedIn headline for you as many times as you want, or just click Revert to go back to the one you had before.

Click Save to save the changes to your LinkedIn profile.

Generally, we suggest using ChatGPT for sales to speed up certain processes. You can also independently brainstorm your LinkedIn headline in Chat GPT from LinkedIn’s AI assistant. In this blog, we gave you 13 LinkedIn headline examples considered to be a good practice. Use them to get inspired by them or as a prompt in Chat GPT to generate variations. It’s up to you!

What to put in a LinkedIn headline

The number one rule is not to make your LinkedIn headline misleading.

Rule number two is that there is no rule number two.

As long as your LinkedIn headline is informative, relevant, and catchy, you are on the right track. Yes, creativity is highly appreciated even on LinkedIn. Stay within the professional frames and you can still play with your LinkedIn headline as much as you want.

Easier said than done (we agree), but your LinkedIn headline should summarize your skills, ambitions, and experiences within the 220-character limit. As this is not as simple as it sounds, most LinkedIn members decide to leave their current job title and forget about it. Big mistake.

It is exactly your LinkedIn headline that sets you apart in the “sea of the same”. It is the first thing your prospects read when they visit your LinkedIn profile and it is one of the things that keeps them scrolling to get a deeper insight into your professional achievements through LinkedIn summary and other LinkedIn sections.

Formulas to write an effective LinkedIn profile

Here are 2 formulas to write an effective LinkedIn profile.

The first one is to imagine I know nothing about your industry and, with that in mind, to explain to me, in one simple sentence, what you do.

The second one is to imagine you have to create a billboard advertising yourself and think of a catchy slogan that would sell you the best.

If this doesn’t help you come up with an appealing LinkedIn headline, try using one of the following formulas where

X represents your ideal prospect;
Y represents your ideal outcome;
Z represents the service you offer.

If these still seem too abstract to you, don’t worry, we’ve listed 13 real-life LinkedIn headline examples to illustrate what an effective headline is and to help you get inspired for yours.

Common mistakes in LinkedIn headlines

Using codes or professional jargon that only people from your industry know such as “BDR”, “SDR”, “AE”, etc.
Showing off by using words such as “expert”, “top-performing”, “superior”, “best” or mentioning any success without offering valid arguments that support it.
Not using keywords that are relevant to your potential prospects. When writing your LinkedIn headline keep in mind that the most commonly used filter on LinkedIn is the “keyword” one. Make sure you show up in your prospect or recruiter’s search result.
Writing a headline that reflects your former professional engagements that are not relevant to your current or future professional aspirations.
Not including your unique selling point. Without it, you are just one more professional in a sea of others.
Make your LinkedIn headline about how you can help others instead of how “awesome” you are.

The 6 common mistakes when writing a LinkedIn headline

On the other hand, here are the top 6 most common mistakes when writing a LinkedIn headline.

Using codes or professional jargon that only people from your industry know such as “BDR”, “SDR”, “AE”, etc.
Showing off by using words such as “expert”, “top-performing”, “superior”, “best” or mentioning any success without offering valid arguments that support it.
Not using keywords that are relevant to your potential prospects. When writing your LinkedIn headline keep in mind that the most commonly used filter on LinkedIn is the “keyword” one. Make sure you show up in your prospect or recruiter’s search results.
Writing a headline that reflects your former professional engagements that are not relevant to your current or future professional aspirations.
Not including your unique selling point. Without it, you are just one more professional in a sea of others.
Making your LinkedIn headline about how “awesome” you are instead of how you can help others succeed.

Summary

Yes, we always encourage our clients to take advantage of AI, but no platform beats human creativity and wittiness so far! Use Chat GPT as a tool to speed up and perfect some of the ideas you come up with.

In the meantime, follow the above instructions and LinkedIn headline examples we listed for you, and you might find yourself brainstorming your ideal LinkedIn headline much quicker than expected.

At the end of the day, no one knows you better than you!

And, speaking of quicker, if you want to make your entire lead generation and outreach significantly faster while booking 3x more meetings than before, you should check out Skylead and its 7-day FREE trial to learn how its groundbreaking solutions could get you faster to your business goals.

Launch your first outreach campaign today!

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LinkedIn is the largest professional network, and it is no stranger to many subscription options. Naturally, every LinkedIn Premium subscription plan is a monthly-based service. However, have you ever thought about how wonderful it would be to try LinkedIn Premium free of charge?

Luckily, you can. Here are six different ways to get LinkedIn Premium free. As a bonus surprise, we’ve even thrown in a way you can even get a LinkedIn Premium discount. But surprises do not end there…

LinkedIn Premium subscriptions explained

The words “LinkedIn Premium” became synonymous with Premium Business plan. However, LinkedIn Premium is a true name for all LinkedIn subscriptions plans. So, to avoid confusion, we will make a note of what type of LinkedIn Premium subscription you can get for free with the methods described below.

First, let’s see what every LinkedIn subscription plan has to offer.

Premium Career plan allows you to find jobs easier, access salary information, and job-seeking communities. In addition you can be a featured applicant, and learn from the LinkedIn Learning platform.

LinkedIn Premium Business plan has many features. Sone of them include 15 InMail, premium search filters, company insights, and access to LinkedIn Learning courses.

Recruiter, aka LinkedIn Premium for big company recruiters is a real booster. It contains 150 InMails, advanced filters, saved searches, alerts, reference searches, and much more.

LinkedIn Premium for small company Recruiters, aka Recruiter Lite is the more affordable version of Recruiter. It contains less features than Recruiter, but it has better features VS price ratio.

Sales Navigator is also know as LinkedIn Premium for Sales Professionals. Among other benefits, it includes the possibility to create lead lists and a large number of advanced search filters for LinkedIn prospecting done right.

Did you know that we have detailed comparisons of every LinkedIn subscription plan? Be sure to check them out:

For our sales folks: LinkedIn Sales Navigator VS Premium For Lead Generation
And all our recruiters out there: LinkedIn Premium VS Recruiter Lite VS Recruiter

How to get LinkedIn Premium free?

LinkedIn really tries to give back to the community. And giving away LinkedIn Premium free for use is one way they do it. However, it is worth noting that, even though each of the ways described below will allow you to use LinkedIn Premium free, it won’t be forever.

Nevertheless, there is plenty of time to test out and decide if you wish to use this subscription package to jump-start your career or for LinkedIn lead generation. Let’s jump to the ways you can try LinkedIn Premium free.

LinkedIn Premium free trial

If you wish to test out the features, you can always opt-in for the LinkedIn Premium Free Trial. This way, you can explore every subscription plan and find which one suits you best.

The free trial lasts for 1 month, and everyone can initiate it. In addition, you would need to insert your credit card details at the beginning of the trial.

After the free trial ends, your subscription will start automatically. Consequently, your credit card will be charged. Thus, if you decide not to pay for the subscription plan, you need to cancel the LinkedIn Premium free trial before it ends. You can also cancel the free trial at the beginning of the trial period, as you will get the entire month for free either way.

Furthermore, if you start a LinkedIn Premium free trial, you won’t be able to have another one for at least the next 12 months.

Starting LinkedIn Premium free trial - Steps

Here’s how you can start your LinkedIn Premium Free Trial.

Firstly, click the profile icon at the top of the homepage. Then, select the Settings & Privacy option.

Secondly, click the Account preferences. Then, navigate to Subscriptions & payments and click the Change button next to Upgrade for free option.

Next, the new page will open up. LinkedIn will ask you what you would like to achieve with an upgrade so it can suggest the plan for you. Thus, you can choose the subscription from the recommended section. Or you can check out all the plans and select one from there.

Here is where you can read more about the Premium plans. So, choose one that best suits your needs. Since Premium Business is versatile and many job hunters, recruiters, and sales managers use it, we will use it as an example.

Lastly, click on the Start my free month button, enter the credit card details and complete the upgrade.

In addition, please note that the price displayed below the button doesn’t include the tax or VAT. So you need to be aware of that if you wish to continue to a paid subscription afterward.

Getting LinkedIn Premium free from employees

One of the perks of working for LinkedIn is that almost every employee gets the LinkedIn Premium free subscription for 6 months. In this case, most of the employees give away these coupons to give back to the community.

However, many have certain conditions you need to fulfill to receive a LinkedIn Premium free coupon. Nonetheless, this is a great way to help those that need it the most.

To find an employee that is giving away LinkedIn Premium free coupons, first go to your LinkedIn search bar. Then, type either #linkedinpremium or #PlusOnePledge and hit enter. Click on Posts, and either sort them by latest or those posted in the last week.

Then, you can reach out to that person and ask them to provide you with that coupon. Simple as that.

The best-case practice is being honest and providing detailed information on why you need LinkedIn Premium free. In addition, describe your life circumstances and how you will use that to develop your career.

Linkedin Premium free for military veterans

LinkedIn joined forces with SheerID, an identity verification platform, for a special occasion. They wanted to offer 12-month access to LinkedIn Premium free of charge for all U.S. military veterans. In addition, all those granted to use LinkedIn Premium free will also have access to more than 16,000 courses.

The reason behind this initiative is that LinkedIn understands how difficult it is to move from military to civilian life. Thus LinkedIn took steps to help U.S. military veterans as much as possible. In addition, LinkedIn offers LinkedIn Premium free use for military spouses, as well.

Here are the benefits that military individuals can expect using the special LinkedIn Premium free membership:

Access to Premium Career subscription for free during the 12 months;
Getting noticed by recruiters;
Building a network;
Find and apply for jobs easier;
Learn new skills;
Support in the military to student life transition;
Veteran-focused learning content;
Additional resources to help you on your new career path.

So, how to apply for the LinkedIn Premium free program for veterans? All you need to do is to go to their Veterans subscription page and fill in the required form.

Tip: Be sure you reference that you are a veteran or have military experience on your LinkedIn profile before applying.

Lastly, please note that if for any reason, you already started a LinkedIn Premium free trial or subscription, you would need to cancel it first before applying to the LinkedIn Premium free veterans program.

Students and graduates can use LinkedIn Premium free too

Sometimes LinkedIn forms partnerships with different educational institutions as a part of their student program. The result of this partnership is that students and graduates can use LinkedIn Premium free for a 12-month period.

To check if your school partnered up with LinkedIn, go and ask if they have access to these subscriptions. If your university says they do not have access or partnership, ask them to reach out to LinkedIn. This way, they can check if they can become a part of the program and offer students LinkedIn Premium for free.

Keep in mind that you need to have an email from the school's domain to be granted free LinkedIn Premium subscription.

If, however, this doesn’t work for you, you can always check for other active LinkedIn Premium free programs for students.

For example, LinkedIn partnered up with Amazon to allow students to use subscriptions for free. So, if your Amazon account is Prime Student, then you are eligible to get a LinkedIn Premium free subscription for 6 months.

All you need to do is sign in to your Prime Student and LinkedIn account and redeem your Premium Subscription.

Yet, keep in mind that if you have an active Premium subscription plan, then you won’t be eligible for this offer.

Visual Studio users get LinkedIn Premium free of charge

Visual Studio Dev Essentials is a developer program created by Microsoft. Among the benefits, they provide various tools and training courses, and the LinkedIn Learning center is one of them. In other words, LinkedIn offers a Premium Career plan free for all Visual Studio Dev Essentials users.

This way, you get access to the LinkedIn Learning courses, acquire certificates and develop your skills. This offer lasts for 1 month, and you don’t need a credit card to start the subscription for free.

To use this LinkedIn Premium free offer, firstly, you need to have a Microsoft account. Once you create it, go to Visual Studio Dev Essentials and click the Join or access now button. Once there, navigate to the Benefits page. Then, find the LinkedIn Learning offer and click the Activate button.

After you’ve done it, you will go to the LinkedIn page, where you can activate the subscription.

Quarterly-based LinkedIn Premium free subscription for journalists

If you are a journalist who strives to perfect the craft, and join the journalist community, then, LinkedIn has a nifty solution for you. They offer access to journalist network, insights, and webinar. In addition, you get LinkedIn Premium free. LinkedIn offers this promotion each quarter.

However, only qualified health journalists can apply for the webinar and receive a free one-year subscription to LinkedIn Premium Business. In other words, qualifications include but are not limited to the following conditions:

Firstly, to attend the webinar, you need to be a member of the LinkedIn for Journalists group;
Secondly, your profile must demonstrate your journalism career path.

To apply for the webinar, you need to pay close attention to the application window for each quarter. You can do so by visiting the LinkedIn LinkedIn For Journalists page.

Bonus: Getting Sales Navigator for free

Here is the surprise for all you Sales Navigator lovers. Apart from starting the 1-month Sales Navigator free trial, you can also get Sales Navigator 2-month free use. This is only possible if your connections refer you through the Sales Navigator Referral program.

Here is how someone can provide you with a Sales Navigator referral or vice versa in 2 easy steps. First, go to your Sales Navigator platform, and click the Referrals button.

Next, type the person’s name you wish to refer to try this LinkedIn Premium free subscription. The only thing left to do is to hit the Send button. Each Sales Navigator user gets to send 10 referrals.

And, that’s it. Your connection will receive the confirmation email with the joining link that will lead to the activation page.

However, there are certain conditions you need to fulfill to receive a 2-month free Sales Navigator subscription:

You are the 1st-degree connection to the referrer;
not currently using any LinkedIn Premium subscription;
Haven’t used a LinkedIn Premium free trial in the past 12 months.

How to get LinkedIn Premium discount?

As you can see, there are many ways to try LinkedIn Premium free. However, LinkedIn limits every account to only one such promotion per year. Nonetheless, if you are unsure if you would like to pay the full price, you can always get a discount.

Here is how you can do it.

First, go to your Settings & Privacy page. Next, under Subscriptions & payments click the Cancel Subscription button.

Next, the new window will open up. Continue the cancellation process.

Lastly, LinkedIn will ask you for the reason you wish to cancel. Respond with It’s too expensive.

Once you do, LinkedIn will give you a 50% discount for 2 months. This will be more than enough to decide whether you wish to pay the price or not.

FAQ

How do LinkedIn's Premium features specifically benefit different types of professionals, such as marketers, sales professionals, or recruiters, beyond the general descriptions provided?

LinkedIn Premium specifically aids professionals by providing enhanced tools for better targeting and networking. Marketers gain insights for more effective campaigns, sales professionals access detailed company and individual data for outreach, and recruiters get in-depth search capabilities to find ideal candidates, making each role's efforts more fruitful and efficient.

Are there any hidden costs or common pitfalls to be aware of when using these methods to get LinkedIn Premium for free, especially regarding the need to cancel subscriptions before they automatically renew?

Seeking LinkedIn Premium for free requires vigilance regarding trial periods and automatic renewals. Users must actively manage their subscriptions to avoid unexpected charges, as forgetting to cancel after a trial can result in automatic conversion to a paid subscription, leading to unwanted expenses.

Can these methods for obtaining LinkedIn Premium for free be combined or used sequentially to extend the free period, or is there a strict limit on how many promotions a user can access over a certain timeframe?

Leveraging multiple promotions for extended LinkedIn Premium access is subject to LinkedIn's monitoring of promotional usage. While users might attempt to sequentially use offers to maximize free access, LinkedIn's systems are designed to recognize and potentially restrict such activity, enforcing limits on the accessibility of consecutive promotions over a specific period.

Conclusion

LinkedIn really tries to give back to the community, and various LinkedIn Premium free promotions are the proof of that.

However, please be aware that LinkedIn keeps track of if and when somebody uses one of these promotions. If, for example, you used a 1-month free trial, LinkedIn won’t allow you to repeat it or get any other promotion from our list. Not for 12 months at least.

Furthermore, LinkedIn is not big on giving refunds. So, be careful to cancel the promotion in time. Otherwise, you will be charged after the free period ends. If, for any reason, you think that LinkedIn Premium is not for you, keep track of the date or set a reminder alert.

Lastly, keep in mind that if you are already a Premium user, you’ll need to cancel your Premium subscription. Only after you wait for the billing cycle to end will you be able to activate LinkedIn Premium free promotions.

That said, enjoy your LinkedIn Premium free promotions!

Are you a recruiter or a sales manager who wishes to outreach your candidates or prospects on autopilot and close more deals? Welcome! We are Skylead. Let’s chat and see how we can help you with your outreach. Contact us via chat or test out Skylead for free directly!

And don’t worry. Whatever LinkedIn subscription you are using, be it Sales Navigator, Recruiter, Recruiter Lite or Premium Business, you can use it with Skylead.

Launch your first outreach campaign today!

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Alongside your profile picture and LinkedIn headline, your LinkedIn cover photo plays a crucial part in your LinkedIn identity.

Not only does it contribute to your overall professional image, but it represents an important element in forming the first impression for your LinkedIn profile visitors.

As such, a LinkedIn background photo requires an equal amount of attention you would dedicate to any of the other sections of your LinkedIn header.

Therefore, in this blog, you’ll learn:

How to change your LinkedIn cover photo for personal & company pages on desktop and mobile;
The size of a LinkedIn background photo for personal & company pages;
What online tools to use to craft a perfect LinkedIn cover photo;
Top 17 LinkedIn cover photo ideas with real-life examples for any profession to make your profile stand out on the platform.

How do I change a LinkedIn cover photo?

Change LinkedIn background photo for LinkedIn personal profiles

On desktop

This is your LinkedIn background photo.

You can change it anytime and as many times as you wish.

#1 Click on the pencil icon in the top right corner of your LinkedIn profile’s header.

You will see two pencil icons, the lower one takes you to change your name, last name, headline, locations, etc., while the upper one takes you to change your LinkedIn cover photo.

#2 Click on the Pen icon to access the LinkedIn background photo editor.

Here you can:

Upload a new cover photo,
Crop it,
Apply filters,
Adjust brightness,
Rotate it,
Zoom it, etc.

By clicking the Adjust icon you can make additional corrections to your image, such as

Brightness
Contrast
Saturation
Vignette

On mobile

To change your LinkedIn background photo on mobile, go to your LinkedIn profile page and click the Pencil icon in the top right corner.

#2 In the bottom, you’ll find the options to edit, add a photo, or delete the existing one.

#4 Once you’ve uploaded the photo, you’ll get the same editing options as on the desktop.

Change LinkedIn background photo for LinkedIn company pages

On desktop

To change the LinkedIn background photo on your LinkedIn company page, you must either be the page’s admin or be given access to the page with editing permissions.

Then, go to the LinkedIn company page you’re managing, and click the Pen icon here.

You will get a dropdown menu to:

Upload a new cover image (check out LinkedIn cover photo size recommendations in this blog’s next section)
Adjust the current cover image;
Or, delete the current cover image.

Once you upload a new LinkedIn banner for your company page, or if you click to adjust the current one, the LinkedIn cover image editor will give you options to:

Upload a new cover photo,
Crop it,
Apply filters,
Adjust brightness,
Rotate it,
Zoom it, etc.

Also, by clicking the Adjust icon you can make additional corrections to your image, such as

Brightness
Contrast
Saturation
Vignette

What is the size of a LinkedIn cover photo?

In 2024, a LinkedIn cover photo size for personal profiles should be a maximum of 1584 x 396 px and a minimum of 1192 × 220 px, up to 8MB, and in JPEG, GIF, or PNG file formats.

When it comes to LinkedIn cover photo size for company pages, LinkedIn recommends a size of 1128 x 191 px, which is at the same time the minimum size, up to 8MB, and in JPEG, GIF, or PNG file formats.

Also, another thing to bear in mind is that LinkedIn cover photos are cropped differently on mobile and desktop devices. So, make sure to view your profile on both kinds of displays when setting up a new LinkedIn background photo. You don’t want important parts of your banner to be hidden or simply look bad.

Luckily, there are many online tools to help you make an ideal LinkedIn cover photo, and you don’t even need to be design-savvy.

Where can I find LinkedIn cover photo templates?

Nowadays, many online design tools have templates specifically for LinkedIn - such as posts, profile images, and background photos that require very little editing to look good.

Otherwise, if you wish to put in more effort, there are websites with free or paid stock images, or you can consider hiring a designer or someone design-savvy to do it for you.

Start with these.

paid stock image websites	free stock image websites	online graphic design platforms
iStockphoto.com	Vecteezy	Canva
Shutterstock.com	Freepik	Fotor
Envato.com	Morguefile	VistaCreate
Depositphotos.com	Pixabay	Freepick
StockAdobe.com	Stockvault
	Pexels
	Picjumbo
	Pikwizard
	Rawpixel
	Reshot

In our next section, you will find 10 ideas on different types of LinkedIn cover photos depending on the message you wish to get across with it.

Summary

Before diving into choosing your ideal LinkedIn cover photo, consider your focus — clients, yourself, workspace, or tools.

Which emotions do you wish to convey? Empowerment, trust, professionalism?

What kind of LinkedIn background photo would enhance your professional image while aligning seamlessly with your brand?

This strategic approach ensures your LinkedIn presence resonates effectively with your target audience while automating your LinkedIn lead generation activities through Skylead. All features are available for a 7-day FREE trial starting today! Don’t miss out!

Launch your first outreach campaign today!

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To improve the platform's efficiency, protect members from spamming, and increase personalization, LinkedIn developed a series of features, such as LinkedIn InMail.

However, as it turns out, this feature poses challenges for some LinkedIn users, whether newcomers or seasoned members, as discrepancies and inconsistencies among the LinkedIn plans can create confusion.

Our comprehensive guide aims to demystify InMail and empower you to maximize the effectiveness of your outreach efforts by incorporating this LinkedIn premium feature, too.

Our sales team uses LinkedIn InMail in their everyday outreach, not only because it is a powerful channel to reach leads but because Skylead is currently the only tool on the market that can automate both paid & free InMails in a click.

So, let’s check out what InMail is all about!

What is InMail on LinkedIn?

LinkedIn InMail is a LinkedIn premium feature that allows you to exchange free or paid direct messages on the platform with members who are not part of your network (2nd and 3rd-degree connections), unlike ‘regular’ LinkedIn messages that can only be exchanged with members part of your network (1st-degree connections).

Think of InMails as LinkedIn's version of an email, as they are structured in a way to have a subject line and higher character limits than a LinkedIn connection request or a regular LinkedIn message.

However, according to the platform's official Learning course, InMail messages have an average response rate of 18 to 25% compared to cold emails' 3% average response rate.

So, let's explore the types of this LinkedIn premium feature to help you better understand its purpose.

3 types of LinkedIn InMails

There are 3 types of LinkedIn InMails:

Free InMails
Paid InMails
Sponsored InMails (message ads).

Free LinkedIn InMail

Every LinkedIn subscription plan comes with 800 free InMails per month. So, even if you are on LinkedIn’s basic (free) plan, you can send free InMails to people who set their profiles to Open profile status.

Specifically, you can generally send free InMails only to users who set their profile to Open profile status. To set your profile to Open profile status, you must have one of the LinkedIn paid plans - LinkedIn Premium, Sales Navigator, or LinkedIn Recruiter.

To sum up, ALL LinkedIn members can receive paid InMails, but only paid LinkedIn subscribers can send them. Also, ALL LinkedIn members can send free InMails, but only to members who set their profiles to Open profile status.

LinkedIn open profile status

There are 2 ways to set up your account to receive free InMails, that is, to set your profile to Open profile status.

#1 Go to your LinkedIn home page and click the Pen icon.

Then, click the Dropdown menu icon next to the Open profile feature and move the toggle button to turn the Open profile status on or off.

Here’s option number 2 to set your LinkedIn profile to Open profile status.

#2 Click the Me icon. Then, Settings & Privacy.

Check out the left sidebar. Click Data Privacy, then Messages.

As you may see, you can opt out of receiving InMails overall, or just free InMails.

Paid LinkedIn InMail

Paid InMails are a premium feature. Therefore, they are included in any paid LinkedIn subscription - LinkedIn Premium, Sales Navigator, and LinkedIn Recruiter.

With each paid LinkedIn subscription comes a number of paid InMail credits you can send to any LinkedIn member except those who opted out of receiving InMails overall.

Therefore, every LinkedIn member can receive paid InMails, but those who switched that option off.

Check out the InMail credits section of this blog to see how many credits are included in your subscription plan and how to check that number.

InMail character limit

InMail character limit depends on your LinkedIn subscription.

LinkedIn InMail character limit

InMail subject line: unlimited (recommended up to 200 characters)

InMail body copy: up to 8000 characters (recommended up to 2000 characters)

Sales Navigator InMail character limit

InMail subject line: unlimited (recommended up to 200 characters)

InMail body copy: up to 1900

Recruiter InMail character limit

InMail subject line: unlimited (recommended up to 200 characters)

InMail body copy: up to 1900

LinkedIn InMail vs. LinkedIn messages

Usually, people new to LinkedIn are confused about the difference between LinkedIn InMails vs. LinkedIn messages.

You can send ‘regular’ LinkedIn messages only to your 1st-degree connections, that is, LinkedIn members part of your LinkedIn network. They are free of charge, available to all LinkedIn users, and land directly in the recipient's LinkedIn Inbox.

LinkedIn messages are unlimited; you can send as many 'regular' LinkedIn messages to your 1st-degree connections as you want. They are cost-effective and pretty convenient for LinkedIn cold message outreach.

On the other hand, LinkedIn InMails can be sent to members who are not part of your network, that is, your 2nd and 3rd-degree connections. They are LinkedIn's premium feature, and their number depends on your LinkedIn subscription plan.

InMails land directly in your recipient's LinkedIn inbox, even if you’re not connected, and have a subject line, which is why they are often referred to as LinkedIn’s version of email. It is why they are such a valuable communication channel on the platform.

Why should you use LinkedIn InMail for lead generation?

InMail messages are a powerful LinkedIn prospecting tool because:

InMails have a subject line.

Firstly, LinkedIn InMail has a subject line; if well-written, it helps your messages stand out in your lead's Inbox compared to a regular LinkedIn message.

Therefore, busy decision-makers (or CXOs, influencers, or simply members who are harder to reach) who receive many messages and invites to connect daily are more likely to see your InMail message and reply.

By sending an InMail first, they will have an idea of what you and your company are all about and will be more eager to have you as part of their network.

InMails have a higher character limit.

InMails have a higher character limit than LinkedIn connection requests. Although we always encourage our users to keep InMails on a shorter end, they undoubtedly give you more room to interest your recipients in what you have to say.

Therefore, you are decreasing the chances of your connection request being rejected and marked as I don't know this person, risking ending up in LinkedIn jail.

The better you write an InMail, the more cost-effective it becomes.

When your lead answers your InMail, you get that credit back. This is LinkedIn’s way of awarding you for aiming to connect with leads relevant to your business, researching your target audience thoroughly, and writing highly personalized, relevant InMail messages.

Furthermore, InMails can also be an excellent way to bypass LinkedIn's weekly connection limits and connect with a higher number of relevant leads.

2 ways to leverage LinkedIn InMail in lead generation

Here are 2 ways to leverage InMails in lead generation and prospecting to ensure they achieve their highest effectiveness:

As the last resource.

Use InMails as the last resource to connect with busy decision makers (CXOs, influencers, people who are harder to reach on the platform, etc.) and your 3rd-degree connections.

If your lead hasn't accepted your connection request and hasn't replied to your email or returned any of your calls (depending on your outreach strategy), it's a good practice to use an InMail message to reach out.

Our Head of Sales, Andrea, used InMails as the last resource in her ‘Targeting specific group members’ approach and reported 53% acceptance rate, 27% reply rate, and 73% open rate.

To connect with members who are ‘harder’ to reach.

Some LinkedIn members (CXOs, LinkedIn influencers, upper management, etc.) don't accept invites to connect from members with whom they don't have connections in common.

InMails can be an excellent way to make an introduction before sending a connection request and decreasing your chances of getting rejected or marked as spam.

For example, our account executive, Pavle, used it in her ‘Founder2Founder approach’ sequence, and her result was outstanding - 44% acceptance rate, 29% response rate, and 82% open rate.

How to write a good LinkedIn InMail [best practices]

If you're new to InMail messages or would like examples to inspire you on how to write LinkedIn InMails for prospecting and to stand out in your leads' Inboxes, we've listed the top InMail examples with an over 25% reply formula.

Or, follow these practices used by our sales team.

Catchy and relevant subject line for a higher open rate.

Think of a LinkedIn InMail as a cold email. Your open rate will depend on the subject line. Make sure it's catchy but not misleading and that it shows that the content of that InMail message is relevant for the recipient. Open rate matters, but so does getting the reply.

Personalizing messages for a higher response rate.

With each InMail message, you must show that you've researched and that the product or service you're offering is highly relevant to the recipient. Personalizing messages implies going far beyond calling your prospect by name.

Keep it to a reasonable length also for a higher response rate.

LinkedIn InMails have a high character limit, but that doesn't mean you must use them all. Remember that busy decision-makers have little time to read a novel-like message. The sooner you reach the point, the higher your chances of getting an answer.

How many LinkedIn InMails credits do I get per month?

Free InMail credits

LinkedIn Premium Careers and Premium Business, Sales Navigator Core, and Recruiter have 800 free InMails by default, whereas Recruiter Lite has 100 free InMail credits. The designated credits are available as you upgrade your basic LinkedIn account to any LinkedIn premium subscription.

There's no way to check the number of free InMail credits you have left for any LinkedIn premium subscription.

Paid InMail credits

The number of InMail credits varies by the LinkedIn subscription plan, and they cannot be transferred when changed to another LinkedIn subscription.

Here's the visual representation of the number of paid InMail credits according to your subscription plan.

We put the plus sign next to LinkedIn Recruiter plans because these are the only LinkedIn plan subscribers who can make an additional purchase of InMail credits. The other 2 LinkedIn Recruiter plans can make a deal to purchase additional paid InMail credits while upgrading their plan.

How do I get InMail credits back?

If a LinkedIn member answers your InMail within 90 days for LinkedIn Premium and Sales Navigator and within 120 for LinkedIn Recruiter plans of the send date, you get that credit back.

By ‘answered’, LinkedIn counts every InMail that is either accepted, declined, or actually responded to.

If the person doesn't answer your InMail within 3 days, LinkedIn will send them an automatic reminder. You can get that credit back even if your recipient answers with LinkedIn auto-response options.

If you are a LinkedIn Premium Career or Premium Business user, you can only send another free or paid InMail once that LinkedIn user replies to your InMail. On the other hand, users of Sales Navigator premium accounts and Recruiter premium accounts can send a follow-up InMail, which will cost them another InMail credit.

You can edit or delete a message that has been sent. However, if you delete an InMail before it receives a reply, you will not get that credit back.

Recruiter subscribers have additional limitations. According to LinkedIn, they must keep their response rate at or above 13% on 100 or more InMail messages sent within 14 days. If you send more than 100 InMail messages over 14 days and have a response rate of less than 13%, you'll receive a warning notification and tips to improve your response rate.

Recruiter premium account subscribers can also send up to 1000 InMails per day, per seat. Newly created or upgraded accounts have an InMail limit of 200 for the first calendar week.

These are LinkedIn's ways to encourage its users to make meaningful connections on the platform and to compose compelling, relevant messages when reaching out to other members.

When do LinkedIn InMail credits renew?

The credits renew for every subscription differently.

LinkedIn Premium and LinkedIn Navigator InMail credits will roll over for 90 days. All Recruiter plans' InMail credits roll over for 120 days. The renewal of free and paid InMails is not on the first of the month but on the first day of your billing cycle.

Free InMail credits renew every month.

How to check InMail credits according to your LinkedIn subscription

This is how you check the paid LinkedIn InMail limit for LinkedIn Premium, Sales Navigator, and Recruiter Lite users.

LinkedIn Premium accounts

Choose Premium features.

Below are all the details regarding the number of InMails (paid) remaining.

Sales Navigator accounts

Click the Sales Navigator icon on your right.

Click on your profile image, then Settings.

These are your available paid InMail credits.

Recruiter Lite accounts

Click on the Recruiter icon on your right.

Click on your profile picture and then choose Product Settings.

Check the Usage Overview section.

How do I purchase additional InMails? [+ credit cost]

Each plan has a certain number of Paid InMails included in the package. Unfortunately, if it says that there are no InMail credits left - there's not much you can do about it unless you're a Recruiter Lite subscriber.

LinkedIn Premium and Sales Navigator users cannot buy any more InMails outside of what's offered within the plan.

Namely, Recruiter Lite is the only plan whose users can purchase additional InMails. However, that number is also limited.

Each additional LinkedIn InMail costs around $10, depending on your geographic area.

If you are a Recruiter Lite user and wish to buy more InMail credits, here is how you do it.

Click the Recruiter icon.

On the right, click on your profile picture and then choose Product Settings.

Check out the Purchase monthly InMails Credits section.

The cost of a LinkedIn InMail depends on your area.

You can purchase 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, or 70 InMail credits.

How do I send an InMail on LinkedIn?

There are two ways to send an InMail on LinkedIn:

#1 Navigate to the profile of a LinkedIn member. Sometimes, the Message button will be visible as you land on the member’s profile, and sometimes, you must click More > Message.

If the LinkedIn member has their profile set to Open profile status and can receive free InMails, it will say Free message in the bottom right corner.

If this LinkedIn member didn’t set their profile to Open profile status, you will see how many InMail credits you have left in the bottom right corner.

#2 You can do the same from your LinkedIn Inbox. Click Messaging.

Then Create a New Message.

Type in the full name of the lead.

If you pick a member you are not connected with, LinkedIn will automatically redirect you to send them an InMail.

Just like in the above example, you will be able to see if you will be using your free or paid LinkedIn InMails.

How to put InMails on auto-pilot to reach more leads faster

Skylead is currently the only tool on the market that automates both free and paid InMails in one click!

Briefly, Skylead is a LinkedIn automation tool and cold email software that helps you leverage both LinkedIn and email to reach a higher number of leads in less time.

By combining its groundbreaking features, such as - LinkedIn automation, unlimited Email automation, Email verification & discovery, and Image & GIF personalization into Smart sequences, Skylead allows you to book 3x more meetings than before.

When talking about automating LinkedIn InMails, the main benefit of Skylead’s Smart sequences is the algorithm being able to recognize whether a lead has set its profile to Open profile status or not and decide whether to use a paid or free InMail credit to reach them out without interrupting your outreach flow.

All you need to do is move the toggle button to the right and allow Skylead to use paid InMail credits if necessary.

Here’s an example of what Skylead’s Smart Sequence looks like.

Frequently Asked Questions

What specific personalization techniques make InMails more engaging to recipients?

Personalization techniques for InMail that increase engagement include using the recipient's name, referencing specific details from their profile such as the post they published, and mentioning mutual connections or interests. This approach makes the message feel tailored and relevant.

How does the effectiveness of InMail compare to other LinkedIn outreach methods, such as connection requests or regular messages?

InMail's effectiveness compared to other LinkedIn outreach methods lies in its direct access to users outside one's network. It also offers a higher chance of being noticed and read, especially for premium accounts.

Are there any updated best practices for InMail subject lines to maximize open rates?

For InMail subject lines, best practices include being clear, concise, and compelling. Using a question or mentioning a mutual interest can significantly increase the open rate by sparking curiosity or providing immediate value.

Does LinkedIn InMail go to email?

No, InMail is a LinkedIn feature. Therefore, LinkedIn InMail goes to your LinkedIn Inbox, or if you initiated an InMail conversation through your Sales Navigator or Recruiter account, that correspondence will be visible only in your Sales Navigator Inbox or Recruiter Inbox.

Do recruiters respond to InMail?

Usually yes. Recruiter users must keep their response rate at or above 13% on 100 or more InMails sent within 14 days. If they send more than 100 InMails over the same period and have a response rate of less than 13%, they'll receive a warning notification.

Is there a LinkedIn InMail read receipt?

No, there are no read receipts for InMails. However, Sales Navigator and Recruiter Inboxes display under your or your recipient's name one of the following 3 statuses for InMails - awaiting response, accepted, declined and it allows you to filter InMails by these statuses.

How do you know if someone read your InMail on LinkedIn? (awaiting response)

LinkedIn users cannot know if someone has read their InMails. However, Sales Navigator and Recruiter Inboxes display under your or your recipient's name one of the following 3 statuses for InMails - awaiting a response, accepted, or declined and it allows you to filter InMails by these statuses.

What happens when someone declines your InMail?

Every InMail message accepted/declined or responded to directly within 90 days of being sent is credited back. Sales Navigator and Recruiter users can filter InMails by awaiting a response, accepted, or declined, while LinkedIn users cannot know the status of their InMail.

How do you know if someone declines your InMail?

It will say {{RecipientsName}} declined to continue this conversation for now in your LinkedIn Inbox, or it will say under the recipient's name Declined your InMail in your Sales Navigator or Recruiter Inboxes. Every LinkedIn InMail that is declined is credited back.

What is the average InMail response rate?

According to an official LinkedIn Learning course, InMail messages have an average response rate of between 18 and 25%. Compared to cold emails' 3% average response rate, LinkedIn InMail seems much more effective, and people tend to reply to them more often than to cold emails.

Is it better to send an InMail or connect on LinkedIn?

It depends. It is better to use InMail to reach your 3rd-degree connections or members who haven't answered any of your messages on any other communication channel, such as - email or calls, or accepted your LinkedIn connection request. LinkedIn InMail is an excellent last resource.

How to reply when a recruiter sends an InMail on LinkedIn?

When you open an InMail message sent from a LinkedIn Recruiter subscriber, you can respond with a custom response or use the smart reply (combined or not with a custom response), which is Yes, interested, or No thanks (decline with or without a custom message).

When do LinkedIn InMail credits renew?

LinkedIn emails, or LinkedIn InMails, renew depending on your subscription plan. LinkedIn premium accounts and all LinkedIn Sales Navigator accounts reset the number of InMail credits after 90 days, while all Recruiter accounts to reset the number of InMail credits after 120 days.

To Sum Up

LinkedIn's features, including the impactful LinkedIn InMail, are designed to enhance platform efficiency, protect against spam, and boost the building of meaningful professional relationships on the platform.

You can test out automating free & paid InMails on Skylead, as well as ALL other Skylead features mentioned in this article for 7 days for FREE, and see for yourself how you can leverage LinkedIn’s full potential in only one click.

So, are you ready to automate LinkedIn InMails and other outreach actions?

Launch your first outreach campaign today!

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LinkedIn private mode or LinkedIn incognito mode is a LinkedIn feature that allows you to browse other people’s LinkedIn profiles without sharing any or some of your LinkedIn profile information with the owners of the profiles you’ve viewed.

As you may already know (or not?), every time you visit someone’s profile, LinkedIn notifies the profile’s owner via the Who’s Viewed Your Profile feature, providing an opportunity to check you out on LinkedIn.

So, suppose you don’t want people whose profiles you’re viewing to know you took a sneak peek at their professional activities.

In that case, the platform allows you to go incognito partially (LinkedIn semi-private mode) or completely (LinkedIn private mode).

LinkedIn incognito mode is available to ALL members, independent of their LinkedIn subscription type.

Therefore, continue reading if you wish to know the following:

What LinkedIn private mode is;
How to make your LinkedIn private;
Ways to customize your private mode on LinkedIn;
How to know if someone else viewed your profile in the incognito mode;
A few lesser-known hacks on LinkedIn private mode, and much more.

Ready?

Let’s get started!

[Mission Impossible Theme Song Playing]

What is a LinkedIn private mode?

There are 3 visibility modes on LinkedIn according to the platform’s Visibility settings:

LinkedIn public mode (or ‘Name and headline’) shows your picture, full name, headline, geographical location, and industry to people whose profiles you’ve viewed.
Semi-private mode shows specific profile information, such as - either only the company you work at or your job position and the company you work at.
(Full) private mode doesn’t show any profile information.

Do I have to pay for LinkedIn incognito mode?

LinkedIn private mode is available to ALL LinkedIn subscribers free of charge.

However, if you have a free (basic) LinkedIn plan, switching to private or semi-private mode will turn off the Who’s viewed your profile feature and erase your viewer history.

We’ve tested it ourselves, and we can confirm you will lose all previously collected data and can only see who's viewed your profile after switching to one of the private modes on LinkedIn.

Once you turn off the LinkedIn incognito mode, the feature Who’s viewed your profile will be back in a maximum of 24 hours and will show only those members who viewed your profile after turning off the private mode.

Also, you won’t be able to retrieve information on who’s viewed your profile during the time spent in private mode on LinkedIn.

On the other hand, all other users on paid LinkedIn plans such as - LinkedIn Careers or Business, any Sales Navigator plan, and any Recruiter plan will still be able to see these analytics and statistics despite keeping their profiles in private mode.

Furthermore, no LinkedIn plan subscriber, free or paid, can ever know the profile information of members browsing in private or semi-private modes on LinkedIn. Also, no LinkedIn plan subscriber can block or prevent other members from viewing in private or semi-private mode.

How do I view profiles in private mode on LinkedIn?

Here are 2 ways to switch from browsing in public to browsing in private mode on LinkedIn, whether you’re accessing your profile on a desktop or mobile.

Private Mode on Desktop

Click the Me icon in the top right corner, then choose Settings & Privacy.

Then, choose Visibility on the left toolbar and click on Profile viewing options.

Finally, choose among the 3 visibility modes.

Private mode on mobile

Open your LinkedIn app, and click on your picture in the upper left corner.

Then, choose Settings.

Click Visibility.

Then, choose Profile viewing options.

Choose in which mode you wish to browse other members on LinkedIn.

How do I customize my public mode on LinkedIn?

If you decide to browse in public mode on LinkedIn, you can still determine what information to make available to members not part of your network.

As you may already know, LinkedIn profiles rank on Google (and other search engines) based on the keywords used on your LinkedIn profile, such as name, profession, LinkedIn URL, LinkedIn headline, summary, etc.

Therefore, this option is advantageous if you don't want everyone to access your LinkedIn profile or wish to keep specific information to your 1st-degree connections only.

Go to Settings & Privacy.

Go to Visibility, and then choose Edit public profile.

Scroll down the right sidebar and move the toggle buttons depending on what parts of your profile you wish to make available to anyone on LinkedIn and which ones should be reserved for your 1st-degree connections only.

How do I know if someone viewed my LinkedIn in private mode?

LinkedIn subscribers get a notification each time someone views their profile.

If a member views your profile in semi-private or private mode on LinkedIn, it will appear in your notifications just like other alerts here (picture below).

If you click on See all views right below the notification, it will take you to the Who’s viewed my profile LinkedIn page with the list of all viewers in the past 90 days, statistics, and additional filters.

Here are a few examples of what a notification regarding members browsing in semi-private mode on LinkedIn looks like.

Here are a few examples of what a notification about members browsing in private mode on LinkedIn looks like.

As you may have noticed, there’s a Search button next to members viewing your profile in semi-private mode.

Clicking on it will take you to LinkedIn search results of all people who work in that company and have LinkedIn profiles.

However, Recruiter subscribers don’t have the Who’s viewed your profile feature on their Recruiter pages. They must go to their LinkedIn profiles to check these types of notifications.

Sales Navigator subscribers will not see these notifications in the All alerts section because this is a purposely focused section that notifies about saved leads, saved accounts, and unsaved leads from saved accounts.

Sales Navigator subscribers can click on the profile picture in the top right corner of their Sales Navigator home page and choose Who’s viewed your profile.

This action will take them to the LinkedIn statistics page.

When should I use LinkedIn private mode?

From our experience, it’s better not to keep your profile in private mode when browsing on LinkedIn.

Why?

By viewing other people’s profiles, you are showing some kind of interest - whether for LinkedIn lead generation, finding ideal candidates for a company position, expanding your network, showing an interest in a job opening by viewing the hiring manager’s profile, etc.

Also, viewing someone's profile on LinkedIn can help you connect with them faster and even bypass LinkedIn weekly invitation limits.

However, there are a few scenarios in which keeping your profile in LinkedIn incognito mode makes sense.

#1 You’re researching your competitors.

This one is pretty straightforward.

If you want to see what your competitors are up to, what they are posting on LinkedIn, or to scrape their network, you should keep your profile in private mode.

However, it’s not just competitors.

You may wish to check something on your former employer’s profile, former or current customer, or anyone else to whom you don’t want to reveal your profile information.

#2 You still need to optimize your profile.

Here, you have 2 scenarios.

Scenario 1 implies you wish to browse relatively random profiles to identify good practices to optimize your profile.

These members are not necessarily the ones you wish to connect with on LinkedIn or relevant to your business, but they've done an excellent job earning the all-star status.

Scenario 2 implies you wish to browse people who are relevant to why you joined LinkedIn, but you don’t want them to know because your profile is still not optimized.

If they check you out, they might lose interest or ignore your LinkedIn connection request because incomplete profiles on LinkedIn seem scammy.

#3 You’re a recruiter shortlisting candidates.

If you don't want all potential candidates to think they are being considered for a job opening at your company, you can view their profiles using LinkedIn incognito mode.

That way, you will avoid people not matching the requirements approaching you on LinkedIn and not get someone's hopes up.

LinkedIn Incognito Mode FAQ

Is private mode on LinkedIn really private?

Yes, LinkedIn private mode is really private. The platform cares about keeping its members' privacy, and there is no way to see members' profile information browsing in private mode on LinkedIn. Also, no member can block or prevent other members from viewing in private mode.

Should I be private or public on LinkedIn?

Staying private or going public on LinkedIn will depend majorly on your goal on the platform. It’s better not to keep your profile in incognito mode because showing interest in other members’ profiles can help you connect with them and even bypass LinkedIn weekly connection limits.

LinkedIn private mode vs. private profile on LinkedIn

LinkedIn private mode or LinkedIn incognito mode lets you browse other LinkedIn members' profiles anonymously. On the other hand, when you set your LinkedIn profile to 'private profile status, ' it means no one can find you on the platform or in any search results (e.g., Google search results).

How do I stay private on LinkedIn (private profile status)?

To switch your profile to private profile status and not even appear in the platform’s search results at all, go to Settings & Privacy > Visibility > Edit your public profile > Your profile’s public visibility (push the toggle button to the left in the right rail).

Does LinkedIn show who viewed your profile?

Yes, LinkedIn notifies members who have viewed their profiles. However, if you set your profile to browse in incognito mode, members whose profiles you’ve viewed won’t be able to see your profile information partially or at all, depending on the visibility mode of your choice.

Do I have to pay for LinkedIn private mode?

No, LinkedIn’s semi-private and private modes are FREE of charge and available to all members. However, when free LinkedIn members switch to private mode, they lose access to the Who’s viewed my profile in the past 90 days feature, unlike paid LinkedIn members who can still see these statistics.

Why would someone use private mode on LinkedIn?

Reasons to use private mode are infinite, but members usually browse LinkedIn in incognito mode if they are researching their competitors, checking out former or current customers or employers, shortlisting candidates for open positions, or don't feel their LinkedIn profiles are optimized enough to reveal their identity.

Who can see my private LinkedIn profile?

A private profile on LinkedIn means that you've set your entire profile to 'private profile status' and that it won't appear in LinkedIn or any other search results (e.g., Google search results). If your LinkedIn is set to private, no one can find your profile on the platform or online.

Can people see if I viewed their LinkedIn?

Unless you are browsing in semi-private or private mode on LinkedIn, other LinkedIn members will get notified once you’ve viewed their profile and can check out your LinkedIn profile to see who you are.

Can LinkedIn Pro see private viewers?

LinkedIn cares very much about keeping the privacy of those members who browse in semi-private or private mode on LinkedIn, and there is no way to see their profile information, no matter what LinkedIn subscription plan you have. Also, you cannot prevent anyone from browsing your profile in incognito mode.

What is the disadvantage of private mode on LinkedIn?

If you have a free LinkedIn plan and switch to private mode, it will turn off the Who's viewed your profile feature and erase your viewer history. You will lose all previously collected data and can only see who's viewed your profile after switching to incognito mode.

Why do people browse in private mode on LinkedIn?

People usually use the private mode on LinkedIn to research their competitors, check out former or current customers, former employers or employees, shortlist candidates for open positions, or simply because their LinkedIn profiles are incomplete and they don’t want to reveal their identity yet.

Can to hide your profile on LinkedIn?

You can either choose to browse in semi-private or private mode on LinkedIn, or you can switch your profile to private profile status and not even appear in the platform or other search engines' search results at all.

How can I view someone on LinkedIn without them knowing?

You can view someone’s profile on LinkedIn without them knowing by browsing in semi-private or private mode on LinkedIn. To turn one of these 2 modes on, go to Settings & Privacy > Visibility > Profile viewing options > Choose between Private profile characteristics (semi-private) and Private mode (fully private).

To Sum Up

While it's true that LinkedIn's private mode offers privacy, it can also compromise the transparency vital for building trust and credibility — the core of LinkedIn's purpose.

Balancing privacy and transparency is crucial for maximizing LinkedIn's effectiveness in lead generation. And, speaking of maximizing LinkedIn, test out Skylead for 7 days for free, and see how you can leverage the power of both LinkedIn and email to reach relevant leads faster.

Launch your first outreach campaign today!

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Have you ever wondered, "What is my LinkedIn URL?" or "Does it affect my professional experience and lead generation?" then, stay tuned. By the end of this blog, you'll learn:

What is your LinkedIn URL
Where to find it
Why and how to change it on the desktop and in the mobile app
How customizing it affects your experience and helps your LinkedIn lead generation
3 ways to customize your it if someone has already taken a specific URL
What to watch out for
Best tips and tricks from our experience so you can stand out from the crowd and make your profile accessible and searchable.

What is my LinkedIn URL?

LinkedIn URL is your profile’s unique URL address automatically assigned to every LinkedIn member. You can customize it for a more professional LinkedIn experience and share it with people to connect with them by going to your LinkedIn profile and copying the URL located in the browser address bar.

Every LinkedIn profile URL starts with https://www.linkedin.com/in/ followed by your name and some numbers (user ID) which you get by default when you open your LinkedIn profile for the first time. Here’s an example of a default profile URL https://www.linkedin.com/in/suzana-ristic-48a636207/. The part in bold of your profile’s address can be customized to look more neat and professional.

The same rule applies to any LinkedIn company page.

When shared, your LinkedIn profile URL is clickable, and it leads directly to your profile on the platform. You can send it in a message, hyperlink your email signature, or copy-paste it into your resume so that people can easily check what you're all about professionally.

How to find my LinkedIn URL?

There are two ways you can find your LinkedIn URL.

#1 Option - Go to your LinkedIn profile page and check out the address bar. This is your shareable LinkedIn profile URL.

#2 Option - Stay at your LinkedIn homepage. Click “Contact info”.

This is your LinkedIn URL.

How do I copy my LinkedIn profile link?

You can use either method mentioned above to copy your LinkedIn profile link. In other words, go to your LinkedIn profile, find your LinkedIn profile link in your browser address bar, and copy it from there. Or you can copy it directly from your contact info on your LinkedIn profile page.

How to change your LinkedIn profile URL?

#1 Go to your LinkedIn homepage. In the top right corner, you’ll see the “Edit public profile & URL” section. Click on it.

#2 This action will take you to a separate page. Again in the top right corner, click on the pencil icon to change the customizable section of your profile URL. After you’ve finished, click “Save”.

NOTE: Both LinkedIn and search engines will take some time to detect the URL changes. However, you should see the URL change right away in the Contact info section of your profile. Until the URL changes everywhere, make sure you copy-paste it from there.

How to change the URL for your LinkedIn company page?

You can and should customize your company's LinkedIn account URL as well. The same rules apply to LinkedIn accounts.

#1 Access your LinkedIn company page and click the “Edit page”.

#2 Choose “Page info” and type in the custom URL for your company.

How to change my LinkedIn profile URL in the app?

This is how you change your profile URL on the LinkedIn app.

#1 Go to your profile home page. Click on the 3 dots.

#2 Choose the Contact info option.

#3 Click the pencil icon to edit your contact info on the LinkedIn app.

#4 Click here to go to a page where you will be able to change your LinkedIn profile URL.

#5 Click here to edit the customizable part of your LinkedIn profile URL.

3 ideas on how to customize your LinkedIn profile URL

If your name is not particularly unusual, or you wish to optimize your LinkedIn URL to show up in LinkedIn and Google search results more often, here are 3 ideas we used and tested to do it.

#1 Use the combination of your full name and title

This is the combination we spoke about earlier, as it can work well for both LinkedIn and Google SEO, especially if you are holding a C-suite, upper management, or any decision-making decision that you know people will search for. You can combine it with your company name as well if you think that could help your lead generation.

www.linkedin.com/in/john-smith-head-of-sales

www.linkedin.com /in/john-smith-ceo-skylead

www.linkedin.com/in/john-smith-skylead

#2 Use your brand name, brand nickname, or a combination of your brand name or nickname plus your company name or a specific keyword.

This is particularly useful for people who have common names or whose brand is widely known under their nickname. For example, if your name is Daniel Bonatti, but you branded yourself as a marketing expert under Dan Bonatti or Dan Bon, this can be your LinkedIn profile URL go to.

www.linkedin.com/in/danbon

www.linkedin.com/in/dan-bonatti

www.linkedin.com/in/dan-bon

www.linkedin.com/in/dan-bon-creartive

www.linkedin.com/in/dan-bon-marketing-specialist

#3 It can be same as your website or a blog or a business page

If you are known for a specific brand or a website or a blog on a specific topic, you can use it for your LinkedIn profile URL as well. If that website name includes your personal name that’s even better, if not, that’s fine too. This way, you’ll get your brand out there even more, not just on Google but on LinkedIn too.

www.linkedin.com/in/marketing-with-john

www.linkedin.com/in/marketingwithjohn

www.linkedin.com/in/marketingformarketeers

Why should you change your LinkedIn URL?

#1 It looks more professional.

Customizing your profile URL looks more professional and gives you instantly more credibility. It shows that you know how to use the platform and that you indeed do utilize it for social selling strategy and other business purposes. Other LinkedIn members will feel more comfortable talking business with you online and you will close more deals in a shorter amount of time.

We have a full lesson dedicated to optimizing your LinkedIn URL as a part of our masterclass Set up your LinkedIn profile: Complete guide.

#2 You’ll show up in Google and LinkedIn search engine results more often.

If you optimize your LinkedIn URL and the way you optimize it can affect how often and how high your profile will rank in their search results.

Yes, a well-customized profile URL plays a significant role in LinkedIn SEO and LinkedIn Xray search.

LinkedIn SEO refers to the way you write and use your profile to increase its ranking in a search and therefore its visibility. The higher your profile is ranked when someone searches for a particular term, the more views your profile is likely to get.

LinkedIn X-ray search is a method used to do LinkedIn prospecting on Google. In other words, using the Google browser, you can search for the profiles without using LinkedIn internal filters.

Both search engines take into account the URL of your profile and rank you accordingly. That’s why, sometimes, it can be useful to put specific keywords in your LinkedIn URL as well.

We tested this thoroughly, and here are several examples we found of how to include specific keywords in your profile URL that can rank you better in search engines.

www.linkedin.com/in/john-smith-head-of-sales

www.linkedin.com/in/john-smith-vp

www.linkedin.com/in/john-smith-growth-specialist

www.linkedin.com/in/john-smith-saas

www.linkedin.com/in/john-smith-ceo

www.linkedin.com/in/john-smith-content-team-lead

Options are endless and their success majorly depends on how well you can predict your ideal lead’s search intent.

4 LinkedIn URL restrictions you should know about

Your custom URL can be 3-100 characters long. Also, you cannot use spaces, symbols, or special characters.

The customizable part of the LinkedIn profile URL is NOT case-sensitive. This means that you can’t use capital letters to try and differentiate your choice. LinkedIn recognizes www.linkedin.com/in/johnsmith and www.linkedin.com/in/JohnSmith as the same URL.

You can change your LinkedIn URL up to 5 times in 6 months. Unless you wish to be stuck with a URL you don’t like, we strongly advise you, before clicking that “Save” button, to make sure that your choice is good enough for the next 6 months.

Your original URL will be unavailable to other members for 6 months. LinkedIn thinks that reassigning your original URL to another member in less than 6 months would make plenty of confusion.

Frequently asked question

How does customizing your LinkedIn URL specifically impact your visibility on LinkedIn's own search engine compared to Google's?

Customizing your LinkedIn URL can enhance your profile's visibility on LinkedIn and Google searches by making it more recognizable and memorable. A personalized URL is easier to share and more likely to be clicked on.

What are the best practices for choosing a custom URL if your preferred name is already taken?

If your preferred name for a custom URL is taken, consider adding relevant professional identifiers like your job title, industry, or certifications. This maintains the URL's professional and personal relevance.

Can changing your LinkedIn URL frequently have a negative impact on your profile's online presence or SEO?

Frequently changing your LinkedIn URL could negatively affect your online presence. Links to your profile may become broken, and it could confuse connections. It's best to choose a URL you're satisfied with for long-term use.

Ready to showcase your new LinkedIn URL?

LinkedIn profile URL might seem like a less visible part of your LinkedIn branding, but as you may see, it’s not.

It affects the way people see the professional YOU and how high your LinkedIn profile ranks on the platform and on Google.

Whether you are on LinkedIn to network or for lead generation, a custom-made URL is your friend. And so is Skylead.

If you are in search of practical marketing and sales knowledge, you can check out our Outreach knowledge hub. On the other hand, if you are searching for a tool that can take over time-consuming sales processes and allow you to put more focus on closing the deal itself, sign up for a 7-day free trial and see how Skylead can be your trusted ally.

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Posting content on LinkedIn is an integral part of everyone’s professional life, especially for the ones doing B2B business. It has become somewhat of a norm to know how to post on LinkedIn, what to post, and when.

Thus, if you’re just starting out or wish to improve your LinkedIn posting skills, we’ve got you covered. In this article, we will cover:

Why you should know how to post on LinkedIn;
What type of posts are at your disposal;
A step-by-step guide on how to post on LinkedIn;
What to post on LinkedIn;
And best-case practices and examples to help you get started.

Let’s go!

Why is it important to know how to post on LinkedIn?

Two words - Thought Leadership.

If you are working in the B2B market, then you must know about the meaningful role LinkedIn plays in it. Especially if you are a business owner, a sales representative or a recruiter.

In other words, whether they wish to sell products/services, or find the ideal candidate, both need to:

Expand their network on LinkedIn;
Become known in their industry;
Build relationships;
Close deals constantly.

And one way to do it is through thought leadership - the main ingredients of the best LinkedIn lead generation strategies.

In short, a thought leader is someone who offers valuable content to their network and shares trends, insights, and how-tos with actionable steps and results.

Thought leadership has proved to be very effective since you can reach more people organically, connect with your network on a deeper level, influence buying cycles, and gain the trust of your potential clients.

For example, a study shows that 54% of decision-makers bought a new product or service from a thought leader after engaging with their content. The thing is the decision-makers had not previously considered buying it! That is how powerful thought leadership can be.

LinkedIn post types

Before jumping to the process, let’s first see what post types you have at your disposal.

Basically, LinkedIn offers a variety of features you can add to your post. Here are your options:

Text-only posts;
Single or multiple image posts;
Video posts;
Document posts;
LinkedIn Polls;
Share that you’re hiring post;
Event post;
Offer help post;
Find an expert post;
Article posts (a bit different, but we will get to that later).

1. Text-only posts

These posts are perfect if you wish to share your story, tips, tricks, career advice, or similar topics that do not necessarily need a visual presentation. Text-only posts still hold value since they have a simple form, so your network can engage with them more naturally.

It is worth noting that LinkedIn won’t show your entire post in the feed, but only the first 3 lines, with the “See more” option. If a person is interested to read the story until the end, they can click the “See more” button and check it out.

This is one way LinkedIn checks for the relevancy of your post. In other words, the more people click the “See more” option, the higher reach your post will get.

In addition, LinkedIn limits text posts to 3000 characters, which is somewhere between 428 to 700 words.

2. Single or multiple image posts

If you wish to showcase your live event, statistics, a quote, or business tips, this would be a go-to format..

Image posts can be powerful simply because they offer the visual perception of some strategy or idea, but only if you provide value. As long as you provide value and offer high-quality images, you will definitely have a high reach and engagement to follow.

3. Video posts

It’s no secret that video formats are favorite on the internet, and LinkedIn is no exception. Videos offer another, more realistic angle of yourself and your company and show a real person behind the scenes.

In other words, you can connect with your network by sharing videos, such as career advice, what your company culture is all about, or your product or service review. Whatever you choose, the advice here is to keep your video under 60 seconds due to the average attention rate.

4. Document posts

Documents upload is a great way to share something that might interest your audience but cannot fit the image or video format.

You can share any document in the form of a PDF, Word file, or PowerPoint presentation. For example, if you are a guest lecturer at an event, you can share your presentation with others on LinkedIn. Or, if you wish to share interesting tips and tricks, a whitepaper, or a case study, you can do so using PDF format.

Whatever you decide to share, again, make sure that the document is high-quality and helpful to people who will see it. In addition, don’t forget to write a proper title of your document and create a short introduction.

5. LinkedIn polls

This post type allows you to ask questions and get responses from your audience. A LinkedIn poll is the best to get engagement and can do wonders for your research and gain insight about relevant topics, the thoughts and opinions of others.

Be sure to check out our detailed guide on How To Use LinkedIn Poll for Lead Generation.

6. Share that you’re hiring Post

If your company has a job vacancy and you wish to generate candidates, then the “Share that you’re hiring” post is one option for you. In its essence, this post is a create-a-free-job-post that will be shown only to your network. Or you can share it within your other post using a share button.

If you wish your job to reach beyond your network, you will need to pay to promote it and ask your network to share it at least.

To find out more about this type of post, click here.

7. Event posts

In the last couple of years, webinars and online events have been the talk of the town, and posting an event on LinkedIn can be a nice shift in your content calendar. This is not a classic post, as you would need to share it within your regular post so your network can see it. Not to mention that it requires much more preparation since you need to organize an actual event.

Nonetheless, it is a perfect way to organize a meeting, offer valuable content, and connect with the people who attend it.

Don't miss our guide on How To Use LinkedIn Events For Lead Generation.

8. Offer help post

It can sound like the beginning of some legend, but little is known about the effectiveness of Offer Help posts. Not that it is some mysterious post, but that is still not common for people to use it, and therefore there are still not enough records.

Nonetheless, by using this feature, you are telling your network that you are offering career-related help. In other words, it is a perfect way of giving back to the community simply by providing the career guidance you once had.

Once you publish a post, a hashtag #OfferingHelp will appear at the bottom of your text, so it can let other people know you’re open to helping those who need it.

9. Find an expert post

Another not-so-much-familiar post is Find An Expert. This post allows you to find an expert for your projects or tasks. Once you insert details of what you need help with, your audience can tag their recommendation to your post or write to you directly.

Find An Expert is a specialized feature, like Post A Job or Offer A Help. In other words, you won’t use it unless you absolutely need to.

10. Celebrate occasion post

This type of post is perfect if you wish to share with your network:

Milestones;
Work anniversary;
Starting new position;
Welcoming a team member;
Or Giving kudos to someone.

This is a nifty refreshment among LinkedIn post types and a nice way to celebrate anything.

11. Share articles

This is not your typical LinkedIn post we mentioned in the beginning. LinkedIn articles are a blog form for your thoughts or knowledge and allow you to express them using up to 12,500 characters (1785 to 3125 words). Like Medium, for example.

You should know that once you publish an article, LinkedIn won’t show them to your network unless you share it with a link in your regular post. However, if you are careful with your keywords, it will show in Google search results.

How to post on LinkedIn?

To start posting on LinkedIn, all you need to do is to go to your LinkedIn feed. From there, you can choose to either post a photo, video, event, article or click the Start a post field to access other post types.

If you previously clicked the Start a post field, a new popup will open up. On the bottom, you can see icons that represent post types. However, not every one of them is listed. If you wish to access them all, click the three dots button.

Next, go ahead and choose your post type. For example, we will pick to add a document and select one to upload.

Then we will add a title as it helps your document get discovered more easily. As soon as you are satisfied with your title, click the Done button.

Lastly, add text to your post, add hashtags. Once done, click the Post button.

You’re done. Now you know how to post on LinkedIn. Easy enough.

What to post on LinkedIn?

Now that we’ve established how to post on LinkedIn, let's talk about what to post on LinkedIn. In other words, we will help you define what content you should post. Yes, the more difficult part.

Before we jump to it, you need to know two things.

As a thought leader, one of the first things you should do is discover your target audience and tailor your content around them. After all, thought leadership is a form of LinkedIn lead generation, and you will eventually outreach some of the people in your network.

You can check out our blogs on how to define your ICP and Buyer Persona to help you determine your LinkedIn target audience.

Secondly, as LinkedIn posting is quite a task, we suggest keeping a monthly or weekly content calendar. Keeping such a calendar can help you organize what to post, as consistency is key here. You just need to dedicate 1 or 2 days. To give you an idea of how it should look, we’ve prepared a document for you so you can get inspired. In addition, you can create it by yourself or use different tools such as Trello or Jira.

LinkedIn post ideas

To know how to post on LinkedIn and what to post, we need to establish the content type. In other words, what content type to post on LinkedIn, for example:

Tips & tricks;
Product update;
Goals you completed with the strategy explanation, etc.

That being said, let’s go over 8 content types and examples to kick-start your thought leadership and teach you how to post on LinkedIn a proper way.

1. Tips & tricks

If you find that something improved your workflow or achieved a specific result, you can share it with your network. Simply describe what it is and why it helped you. In addition, you can always spark engagement by asking what their thoughts are about it or what other tips help them with the topic in question.