May 16, 2011
Even though I am a LinkedIn Profile Writer, I do spend time on Facebook. It’s my guilty pleasure! One of the things that I often see are spammy links deposited on my Facebook wall that promise the ability to “see who has viewed your Facebook profile!” Apparently this is extremely tempting to people because they giddily click on the link only to find themselves in a rat’s nest of spam, viruses, and Trojan horses. I am going to let you in on a little secret… Facebook DOES NOT allow the ability to see who has viewed your profile. If you see a link promising that ability, run the other way!
ON THE OTHER HAND, LinkedIn allows you to spy on your profile readers! Yes, it’s true! You can see who has viewed your profile!!! Wait! Don’t get too excited. There is a caveat. In order for you to view your list of profile visitors, you must allow other people to view YOU. You see, LinkedIn has 3 visibility settings to choose from:
If you want to see who has viewed your profile, you must opt to divulge your name and headline… which is only fair! If you are one of those LinkedIn voyeurs who love to skulk around checking out profiles, you can always toggle your settings back and forth between anonymous and visible so you can experience the best of both worlds.
Most people have the Basic, free LinkedIn account. The Basic account allows you to see the last 5 viewers of your profile. If you want to see the full list of your stalkers, you must upgrade. Most people avoid the paid LinkedIn membership thinking it’s really expensive. LinkedIn actually has some cheaper plans they don’t tout such as the Personal Plus plan which is only 7.95/month if you pay it annually.
Okay, so now you have made yourself visible and you can see all the LinkedIn professionals checking YOU out… Did you know you also see how many people viewed your profile over the last 90 days AND how many times you appeared in search results?
These statistics are awesome because they allow you to see if you have a SUCCESSFUL profile. Let’s say you are appearing frequently in search results but you don’t have many profile views. This tells me you either do not have a good profile picture posted OR your headline isn’t compelling enough.
Here’s a short video I recorded:
If you have any LinkedIn questions, email me!
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Question how often is the Who’s viewed your profile page refreshed? I mean if I view a basic account holder’s linkedin profile and I appear on this person’s Who’s viewed your profile, how long before my profile name gets erased from this person’s Who’s viewed your profile page? thanks
Hi Simba! The answer is… it depends! If they have Profile Stats Pro… then they can scroll back and find it up to 90 days. If they are a basic user, you will be on their Who’s Viewed Your Profile screen until they receive 5 additional views.
This can’t be right. Last week I had 27 profile views (not searches), however, the same 4 people continue to appear in the “who’s viewed my profile”. Finally, a 5th appeared today. But I check daily and the list rarely changes.
And, why are the stats “9 views in 90 days” when I know it has been viewed more?
If I’m logged OUT of linkedin, view a profile, then view another profile, can these 2 people see that the same user has viewed them both in the “who’s viewed this profile also viewed” box?
I would have to agree, this feature is one that is quite often not used as much as it should be. I on the other hand see it as an opportunity.
Angel recently posted LinkedIn Tip of the Day: How Do You Respond When Someone Has Viewed Your LinkedIn Profile?
I had a question which i hope you could answer.
i normally snoop linkedin to find potential businesses to send speculative application to.
What i wanted to know is if for example on thursday i applied the anonymous setting to view a businesses profile, then on friday i returned to a normal settings, would i still appear anonymous to the profile i viewed on Thursday has i have changed my setting back?
Thanks for any time spend answering my question
I find the anonymous very creepy. This is for business people and everyone who is viewing some ones profile has a right to see who views it. There should be no function to hide. If you have to hide then you most likely should not be a member on this site. This is one reason I will not buy the subscription. LinkedIn needs to fix this.
That is all well and good until the person who viewed my profile only shows up as “Anonymous”. I want the ability to block “Anonymous” users. If you want to view my profile you have to reveal yourself.
Hi Donna,
I would like our employees to use LinkedIn, but our President (not a LinkedIn user) feels that our competitors can use this to find our key customers. Any suggestions?
Hi Dona
Can you please tell me that if someone searches me up in Google and then checks out my public profile without logging in to Linked In, do I still see them in People who Viewed your profile list?