LinkedIn is an important business and career tool that helps you accomplish your professional goals. One of the reasons why LinkedIn is so effective is the fact that it lets you tweak your settings depending on your preferences. This also applies to your privacy settings.
If you want to browse profiles on LinkedIn anonymously, that is possible. You just need to make some adjustments to your LinkedIn privacy settings.
The default when you first set up your LinkedIn profile is that when you view another user’s profile, you show up on their “Who’s Viewed Your Profile” page. This means they will be able to see that you viewed their profile.
In some instances, visiting another person’s profile is beneficial because it might pique their interest and cause them to visit your profile back. This could lead to a potential new connection for you.
But in some cases, people prefer not to be visible when viewing other users’ profiles. Maybe you just want to check out the competition without actually connecting with them, or just doing research. Regardless of the purpose, anonymity on LinkedIn has its benefits and should be used when necessary.
Browsing Other People’s LinkedIn Profiles Anonymously
To browse LinkedIn profiles anonymously, move your cursor over your profile photo in the top right of the LinkedIn homepage and click ‘Privacy & Settings’. Take note that sometimes you may be prompted to sign in again. This is just for verification purposes.
Click Privacy and then click on ‘Profile viewing options’. From the options listed, you will be able to choose ‘Anonymous LinkedIn member’.
It is important to know that choosing to browse anonymously will have other effects on your profile. When you choose not to show your name and headline, you also prevent yourself from seeing who has viewed your profile. This limits the information you receive about potential connections who visited you.
LinkedIn put this in place so that users will be less motivated to view other user’s profiles discreetly. After all, the goal of the site is to promote new connections. This is why you should only view profiles anonymously when necessary.
Another thing to note is that if you change your settings to become completely anonymous on LinkedIn, people would still be notified that someone is viewing their profile. They just wouldn’t know who it is because your name and information will be hidden from their view.
Benefits of Browsing Profiles Anonymously
Browsing profiles anonymously on LinkedIn has its benefits. It is a very useful tool when you are starting out on LinkedIn and just want to get a feel of how the social networking platform works. You don’t necessarily want to make a lot of connections at this point, so you may choose to browse anonymously.
For entrepreneurs who are researching their competition and don’t want them to find out about it, then anonymous browsing is also very helpful. LinkedIn users can even do this with people who aren’t necessarily their “competition”. If you just want to know how other people in your industry are writing their profiles so you can get some inspiration, then browsing anonymously is a good idea.
This also applies for when you are researching potential clients, customers, leads, or employers. As a side note, if your profile is looking good, and you want to make new connections, then maybe you would also want them to see you.
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