“Being accessible through LinkedIn is as important as being discovered on LinkedIn, being perceived as an authority in your space and becoming trusted through your content on LinkedIn.” @TLBurriss
Accessibility can be through many different channels on your LinkedIn Profile.
Your LinkedIn Company Page also includes a link to your business website:
What are you sharing in these fields today? What should you be sharing in these fields?
Be accessible through your Email Address
This field should contain the primary email address you are using, relevant to your use of LinkedIn. If you are using LinkedIn as a business tool, share your business email address. If you are using LinkedIn for career transition use your personal email address.
Each year I send an email message out to my entire LinkedIn Network. Hundreds of my connections have dead email addresses as their primary email address on LinkedIn. Don’t be one of them for lots of reasons, including keeping your LinkedIn Account secure.
BTW – Once you add an email address to your LinkedIn Account, leave it on there. Make the new email address your primary. Leaving old email addresses let’s the people who have your old email address find you on LinkedIn.
New Feature – LinkedIn has added the ability to make your Primary Email address accessible beyond your 1st level connections, or to no one, if you prefer. See Email Privacy to adjust these settings.
Be accessible through your Phone Number
List a phone number thats monitored on a daily basis. Don’t be that LinkedIn Member with a disconnected phone number or one for an old employer. You don’t have to put your cell phone number on LinkedIn if you don’t want to, however how about your business phone number or a Google Voice Phone number (free to many).
BTW – the phone number listed under Privacy and Settings is not the same as the number listed under contact information.
Be accessible through your Address
This should be a physical address where your Most Important Viewer (target audience) can visit you. Enter a real address, one that is found via Google maps, SmartPhone maps or MapQuest. If you have a business that does not have a facility designed for prospects and clients to visit, I recommend leaving this field blank.
BTW – this field is designed to open in Maps. It won’t work if you don’t enter a real address.
Be Accessible through Instant Messenger
You can use this field for Skype, Yahoo, Google, ICQ, CQ, WeChat or AOL. I share my Skype ID because today Skype is internationally used as a audio/video communications tool. However, I encourage you not to put a Instant Messaging account here if you are not going to use it or at least monitor it daily.
BTW – think of the instant message tool you are using. Some are not used by people in business and may feel less secure than others.
Be accessible through your Twitter Handle
Lots of people are on Twitter. However, I recommend only adding your Twitter handle if it’s relevant to your business and if you are actually using it. Countless numbers of LinkedIn Members list their twitter accounts that are protected, dormant or gone, none of which adds value to your professional brand.
BTW – you can have multiple Twitter accounts associated with your LinkedIn Account. However remember to only add twitter accounts that are relevant to your business and your Most Important Viewer.
Be accessible through your Website URLs
You can have up to three URLs listed on your LinkedIn Profile. LinkedIn recommends the following types of entries; Personal, Company, Blog, RSS Feed, Portfolio or Other.
I recommend using the type Other for all of your entries. This allows you to manually name each of the entries so your Most Important Viewer knows where each URL will take them.
Keep your entries relevant to your use of LinkedIn and focused on your Most Important Viewer.
BTW – I encourage you not to add three website URLs just because you can. Keep these links relevant and highly focused to your Most Important Viewer. Don’t let them go chasing content that does not add value to the growing relationship. You don’t have to have three URLs.
Be accessible through your LinkedIn Company Page Website URL
If you are the manager of your LinkedIn Company Page you can add the URL to your company Website on this page.
BTW – make sure you have at least 2 high level managers (or owners) listed as administrators of your LinkedIn Company Page. If you lose a manager and they no longer want to be involved, a high level manager (or owner) can add new administrators and remove the ex-admins. Don’t use a Fake LinkedIn account as the manager. If LinkedIn removes the Fake account, you’ll also lose your LinkedIn Company Page.
Bonus Contact information idea – Some LinkedIn Members, myself included, will share their public contact information in their Summary section. This makes yourself accessible to everyone who visits and reads your LinkedIn Profile Summary Section.
Now for your ToDo List
OK, now the most important information. Two nuggets of knowledge required to ensure you are accessible in the ways you want to be.
#1 – Update your contact information immediately upon transitioning from one business to another. Old contact information will not help you at all. The moment someone tries to message or call you and they can’t, you become a ‘dead contact information’ connection.
#2 – Test your contact information. We are all susceptible to typos. Believe me, I know. Therefore, add your contact information as you wish then test it to be sure it works properly. Again, the moment your Most Important Viewer tries to contact you, you become a ‘dead contact information’ connection.
Be accessible in live, business and career. This is the best way to get into great conversations.
Teddy