How to Leverage Your Profile Views

Here at the Coaching Blog- one of the world’s leading blogs on the subject of Leadership and Coaching we quite often post articles by leading authors and authorities- today we are delighted to post an article from LinkedIn.com by Jimena Cortes.

Let’s say you take advantage of LinkedIn’s publishing platform and you post an awesome article full of valuable insights for your online community. After you’ve published this article, you’re getting a lot of article views, comments and likes. You’re probably feeling pretty good about yourself and you should! One of the things you’re most likely also getting are profile views, which can be a powerful tool for leveraging connections.
When you log-in to LinkedIn, you’re notified on how many people have viewed your profile in the past few days. For example, it may say: 50 people have viewed your profile in the last 30 days. You can click this number and it will take you to a section called Who’s Viewed Your Profile. This section is a goldmine of useful information for connecting with prospects.
It’s important to note that while you can use this section with the free version of LinkedIn, this post is more specific to those with premium accounts. When you have a premium account, you have access to significantly more information including specifics on who has viewed your profile. So keep in mind, if you don’t have a premium account, this information may not apply to you. Premium accounts can see who’s viewed their profile the last 90 days. Free accounts can only see the last 5 views.
Check out the Demographics
When you click Who’s Viewed Your Profile, you will see a dashboard. The dashboard will have three tabs. The first tab is profile views and provides a chart that shows the views based on certain time frames. The next tab will show where your visitors work and the cities in which they live. The third tab shows the titles and industries of the individuals who have visited your profile. One really great feature about LinkedIn is that it will filter out all the profile views that don’t fit in a particular category. This is a great tool for narrowing your profile views into your ideal prospect categories.
Who’s Reading Your Posts
As I mentioned in the beginning of the article, one of the LinkedIn features I highly encourage you to take advantage of is publishing articles. Creating high-quality, valuable content is a very important SEO strategy and it can also be incorporated into your LinkedIn marketing strategy. When you post an article with useful information, it can generate a large number of profile views.
When you click Who’s Viewed Your Profile, you have access to another tab called Who’s Viewed Your Posts. This page allows you to see how many page views, likes, comments and shares you’ve receive for each article you’ve published on LinkedIn. It also allows you to see the demographics of your readers.
LinkedIn will provide information on the top industries, job titles, locations and traffic sources of your readers. You can even go a step further to click on one of these demographics and sort the profiles of those viewing your posts. These people are potentially great leads. They’ve engaged with your content so they are familiar with you and the value you provide. Remember, the more quality content you publish on LinkedIn, the more views and the more opportunity to connect with your ideal prospect.
Why Pay Attention to Profile Views
One of the most important things you can do for your LinkedIn marketing strategy is to document and report what it is you’re doing. Far too often, people try one strategy, it doesn’t work and that’s the end of it. If you want to be successful, you have to know what’s working and what isn’t. What’s great about LinkedIn profile views is that it allows you to do just that.
When you monitor the Who’s Viewed Your Profile dashboard on a regular basis, you’ll be able to see and document spikes in your profile views and engagement. You can then tie those views to your activity on LinkedIn. This strategy allows you to find out what works for you and your prospects. If you publish an article and the engagement is high, you should consider posting similar content. If you update your status or share industry related news and people respond favorably, continue to do so.
Connect with People
If people are viewing your profile, there is a reason why. Use this as an opportunity to engage with that person and find out why. It can be as easy as sending them a simple connection request and message saying something like:
Hello [Name],
Thank you for connecting with me. I value new connections and the opportunity to share business information with each other. 
I noticed you’ve been engaging with my post on LinkedIn and I really appreciate you sharing the articles with your network. That’s what makes LinkedIn so great – the ability to share valuable information with our online networks.
I ran across this article and based on your background, I thought you might be interested. Be sure to let me know what you think.
[Article Link]
Best Regards,
[Your Name]
Conclusion
Profile views are a great opportunity to start actual conversations with people and generate leads. The more active you are on LinkedIn, the more profile views you are going to receive. Don’t overcomplicate LinkedIn. You can spend 15 to 30 minutes daily conversing with people on LinkedIn and sharing valuable insights. That alone will be enough to generate highly targeted and quality leads.
You can also start by publishing 1 or 2 articles a month. Remember, keep track of what you’re doing on LinkedIn and if something isn’t working, change your strategy.
Want to get more leads than you know how to handle in the next 48 hours? Follow this link and join our LinkedIn 48-hour challenge!
http://www.onlinemeetingnow.com/register/?id=kz8h4679wl&