Can an Upgraded Account Help Optimize Your LinkedIn Profile?

Have you thought about trying LinkedIn’s free 30-day premium account?  If you decide to upgrade, you can gain several important benefits and features.  Upgraded accounts can be a great asset to job seekers who can use the upgraded accounts to be “featured applicants” and for recruiters who can use the system contact those outside their own network groups.

Upgraded accounts also offer several features designed to give you more insight into your own engagement and the engagement of others with you.

Benefits of Upgrading

When you upgrade to a premium LinkedIn account, you get the opportunity to display your gold “In” badge and the “OpenLink” badge, notifying others that you are a premium member.

You also get expanded search results, permission to contact users outside your network and tools that allow you to bookmark and annotate others’ profiles.  An upgraded account also gives you the option to join the OpenLink network that allows others to message you at no cost, even if they are not in your group.

Another great tool is the “Profile Stats Pro” that allows you to see a list of who has viewed your profile in a certain period of time.  You can also show views of your profile by industry or by location, and monitor the keyword searches that have featured your profile.  You can see views by any of these categories easily and even find other helpful viewer information.

The Profile Stats Pro tool provides a better understanding of who is searching for you and how they are searching.  You may be able to tailor information in your profile to make you stand out in these types of searches.

For example, if you live in Atlanta and you see that people in that area are looking for technical writers, it might pay to spend some time brushing up your profile from a technical writing standpoint.  This might include optimizing your profile for keywords related to technical writing as well as keywords for cities around the Atlanta area where large technical writing firms are established.  It might also mean that you want to request endorsements from those who have worked with you as a technical writer in the past.  LinkedIn suggests common endorsement types; in the technical writer example, it might ask your colleagues to endorse you for technical writing as well as editing, composing, proofreading and other similar skills.

Cost of Upgrading

While LinkedIn offers a free 30-day trial of the upgraded account, it will cost you after the trial period.  The total cost depends on what type of premium account you choose and the features it contains.

There’s No Harm in Trying It

As long as you cancel before your 30 days are up, there is no cost to try the LinkedIn profile upgrade.  Try it out and see if the features work for you as you attempt to push yourself and your brand out to others who are looking for people like you.