Have you ever wondered if you’re missing some of the functions on LinkedIn that may help you with your business?

It’s hard to keep up with all of the changes and functionality on social media sites. It’s something that my team and I do daily to make sure we stay up-to-date on all of the LinkedIn tips, tricks and changes.

In this article I am going to share some of the best kept secrets (old and new) that include extremely advanced search ninja tricks and much more.

Each of these 19 LinkedIn tips are simple and easy to implement immediately!

1. Replying to and Tagging New Connections (NEW)

LinkedIn has made it harder than ever to tag and reply to those people who have sent you a connection request.

Start by clicking on the person icon with the + sign in the right corner of the top grey bar to go to the page with new connection requests.
Do NOT click Accept yet!
To see the message sent by the person, hover over the message bubble located in the right corner of the box, for the person you wish to accept.
To reply to them, click the reply arrow in the top right corner of the message box.
Once you have replied to them, you can accept their request.
Now go to their profile page where you will see the Relationship Tab. Tag the person as appropriate and add any relevant notes and reminders.

If you accidentally clicked accept, before replying to their message, you can now see their original connection request message archived in the relationship tab.

Go to the message center and reply to them based on what they wrote in their request.

2. How To Bypass LinkedIn’s Commercial Search Limit 

Active social sellers and recruiters are likely starting to notice some more limitations popping up on free LinkedIn accounts, one of which is the new commercial search limit. It’s meant to cut down on “commercial usage” of the profile search feature and push power users to premium accounts. Hey, they have to make money somehow, right?

The good news is that there is a cool new tool that you’re going to love if this new change has affected you that could delay your need for a premium account. It doesn’t appear to have a name and was created by Shane McCusker, based on work by Irina Shamaeva.

Go here to access unlimited LinkedIn profile searches 

It’s a super basic interface but it works very well (and quickly too). What’s super cool is that the searches are unlimited and not related to your network so you get different results then you normally would.

3. Free InMails to LinkedIn Group Members (Updated)

That’s right, you can send up to 15 free messages per month instead of expensive InMails to people that share the same LinkedIn Groups as you.

Go to any LinkedIn group you are a member of. Click the members link, just below the group title.

This will open the Members List. Using this method, you will have to scroll down manually to find people to message. Hover over their name to see the message icon, which you can click and then send them a message.

Alternatively, if you come across someone you want to message who has posted or commented in the group, click on the three horizontal dots and select Reply privately.

This will open up a new message with them in the message center.

4. Find Targeted Prospects to Connect With From Groups (Updated)

As the Group search box now only searches for content within group posts, you must use the Advanced Search to search for potential prospects.

To do this open the Advanced Search. Add your Keywords (such as VP Sales), check 2nd connection under Relationship and then check the group you wish to search in.

When you find a good potential prospect in the results, open their profile in a new tab and use the Connect button on their profile page to send them a personalized connection request.

5. Determine the Approximate Size of Someone’s Network on LinkedIn (Updated)

Have you ever wanted to figure out how many people were in someone’s LinkedIn network when they have over 500 connections? Perhaps you want to determine just how connected a particular individual is but LinkedIn refuses to give you the details.

There is a way to get a pretty good idea of how many connections someone has with a simple trick that most don’t know about.

Go to the person’s profile page.
Click on the down arrow and select “View recent activity”
You will see the number of followers they have listed beside the yellow Follow button.

This lists a persons total number of followers which include all of the 1st degree connections plus anyone who has choses to follow them. In most cases this gives a fairly accurate number, especially if they don’t have any or very little recent activity.

6. Boolean Search

Similar to Google, most people have no idea that LinkedIn search allows the usage of modifiers to help you get even more targeted results.

Quotes

If you want to find results containing an exact phrase, use quotation marks to enclose the phrase. For example, “HR manager” or “environmental consultant”.

AND

If you want to search for LinkedIn profiles that include two separate terms, use the word AND in capital letters between both terms when doing your search.

OR

If you want to combine results of two separate search terms, type OR in all upper-case letters between one or more terms. For example, Pepsi OR Coca-Cola.

Parenthetical

This is where things get interesting. You can combine multiple modifiers to get even more complex search results. For example, “software AND (engineer OR architect)”.

NOT

Want to exclude results that contain a specific term? Use the word NOT in upper-case letters between terms you want excluded from results. For example, NOT “customer service”.

For more help with LinkedIn Boolean Search, download this free PDF tip sheet. (Right-click and select “Save link as”)

7. Use Saved Searches & Have LinkedIn Send You Leads Automatically

When you have found a particular advanced search criteria that populates some good and target results for you, you can save your search using the “Save Search” option.

LinkedIn will send new leads to your inbox based on preferences you decide and the search criteria you specify. Pretty awesome, huh?

8. Search For a Specific Position Within a Company

If you have a list of prospective companies and are looking for a specific position or title within the company, go to the Company’s page and click on Employees.

Then, for example, if you are looking for a VP of Sales, click on Advanced on the left, just below Search and add VP Sales into the keywords section. This will bring up a list of the employees with VP Sales in their profiles. To further improve your results if you are looking for prospects, only search for 2nd degree connections and Group Members.

9. Use The “People Also Viewed” Feature

If you find a great looking potential prospect, be sure to check out the People Also Viewed feature down on the right-hand side of the page. This can be an excellent source to locate other similar potential prospects.

10. Adjust Your Privacy Settings (Updated)

While this feature mentioned in the point above (#9) can be handy for you to find prospects, it can also work against you. This broadcasts your competitors to potential prospects that visit your profile.

Don’t let people leave your profile to view your competitor. Go into “Privacy & Settings” and disable the “Viewers of this profile also viewed” box.

11. Find Prospects In Your LinkedIn Publisher Followers

Another great place to look for potential prospects is in your list of LinkedIn Publisher Followers. While your total list of followers do include all of your 1st degree connections, they only show those followers that you are not already connected to on your Followers page. Prospects in this list have great potential, as they already know who you are and have found enough value from your previous posts to take the time to follow you.

But remember, when connecting with these followers, do NOT say that you are connecting with them because you saw they are following you. In your connection request, give them a good reason to connect with you.

12. Ask for Introductions (Updated)

Look to see who in your network already knows the people you want to meet on LinkedIn and ask them if they’d be kind enough to do an introduction or if you have their permission to mention them as a mutual connection in your connection request message.

13. Find Warm Prospects Using the Who’s Viewed Your Posts Feature (NEW)

If you post on LinkedIn Publisher, you can see everyone who has interacted with your post, whether they liked, commented or shared it.

These are people who now have some idea of who you are and have had a positive interaction with you. You may or may not be connected to these people.

If they are a potential prospect, do a little research about them first, then send them a message. Thank them for their like/comment/share and perhaps recommend another one of your posts that they might find benefit from.

If you are not already connected and you think they might be a beneficial connection, go to their profile and send them a personalized connection request thanking them for their like/comment/share.

14. How To Reorder Your LinkedIn Skills

Have you ever received endorsements for useless and off-topic skills on your LinkedIn profile? This used to frustrated the heck out of me until LinkedIn put in a way to re-organize the first 12 endorsements in your list.

Big thanks to Andy Foote from LinkedInsights for sharing this tip!

Go to “Edit Skills” when editing your profile
Select “Manage Endorsements”
Choose the skill you want to re-order and deselect the 12 endorsers you’d like to have featured
Click “Save”
Repeat the above but add those 12 endorsers back and click “Save”

That’s it! Here’s an example of what it looks like beforehand:

Here’s what it looks like after the icons of people missing their photos have been removed:

15. Follow Up Messages

Create a lead generation message sequence that’s designed to build relationships and move conversations offline. Don’t just collect connections…build relationships with something I call the LinkedIn social selling funnel.

Click here for a more detailed breakdown on the LinkedIn social selling funnel.

16. Get Your Account Unrestricted

Has LinkedIn restricted your account and banished you to LinkedIn jail? The most obvious sign is that you are now required to know the email address of every single person you try to connect with. This happens when five people have clicked the “I Don’t Know This Person” or “Report Spam” link after declining your connection request.

If this happens to you, you can reach out to support and ask for forgiveness to have them remove the restriction. Stacey Zapar wrote a great guide to getting out of LinkedIn jail if you want more info.

17. Use Premium Filters (Updated)

While you can access a lot of advanced filters with the free version of LinkedIn, the premium filters give you unparalleled detail.

Premium Filters Included with Most Premium Plans

Select one group
Company size
Interested in (i.e. potential employees, entrepreneurs, hiring experts, etc.)
Seniority level

Premium Filters Available Only With The Most Expensive Premium Plans

Function
Years of experience
Join date
Select multiple groups

18. Personalize Connection Requests on Mobile (Updated)

For a long time, one annoying thing about the LinkedIn mobile app is that it never let you send personalized connection requests. That is not so now!

For both Android and iPhones, click the three horizontal dots located in the top right corner of the profile.

Next tap on Personalize Invite.

Create your personalized connection request in 300 characters or less and hit send.

19. How To Check Social Shares For Your Publisher Posts

Since LinkedIn removed the number of shares for each social media platform, have you ever wondered how many times a certain Publisher Post was shared via social media?

I’ve got the trick for you.

It’s called ShareMetric and it works as a free Google Chrome plugin. It shows shares across the major social networks (except Twitter) plus it also keeps track of comments and likes on Facebook.

NOTE: You MUST remove everything after the “?” in the link bar for this to work. For example if the link is

you must remove the:

Did We Miss Anything?

Do you know any special LinkedIn tricks that we missed in this article? Let us know in the comments below.

Melonie Dodaro is the author of the #1 international bestseller The LinkedIn Code. She is also the founder of Top Dog Social Media, a digital marketing agency that helps businesses, sales teams and professionals leverage social media and online marketing to build engaged communities and increase leads, prospects and clients. 

Dubbed by the media as Canada’s #1 LinkedIn expert she is highly sought after internationally as a LinkedIn and social selling speaker and trainer.

To learn more about Melonie visit http://TopDogSocialMedia.com and http://TheLinkedInCode.com.