The Second Biggest Lie On LinkedIn

"You need to optimize your LinkedIn Profile for Keywords".

You can't. I'll explain.

TL;DR

Being found on LinkedIn via keywords is highly unlikely, being discovered is the norm. LinkedIn users prefer to browse rather than search. You can’t optimize if you don’t know what or how to optimize. Keyword optimization for LinkedIn Profiles is a misnomer and fantasy.

LINKEDIN IS NOT GOOGLE (A SEARCH ENGINE)

Keywords are crucial to being found on Google (and any other search engine) but they're irrelevant when it comes to being discovered on LinkedIn. Search engines help you with a specific search. LinkedIn is a vast network of networkers who are browsing/discovering, they're not necessarily searching/finding. LinkedIn is much more than a search engine; it's a multimodal network which helps people to research, communicate and connect. LinkedIn generates reams and streams of data which actively encourages users to discover and helps them to research other users. We have access to more people relevant data on LinkedIn than we could ever have using Google alone. LinkedIn is vast and vibrant: 350+ million registered members, growing by 2 new members per/second and showing no sign of slowing down. 

WHICH KEYWORD HELPED YOU TO FIND ME?

When was the last time you asked this of your Profile viewers? I'm guessing never. How can you optimize for keywords if you don’t know which words are key? 

EVIDENCE

Let’s look at the evidence. Here’s a screenshot I took of the 'Who’s Viewed Your Profile' section a few days ago [LinkedIn took away the 'Viewers found you from People similar to you' tab shortly after I published this post - probably just a coincidence]:

When I mouse over the 606 Other Keywords, I get this:

If keywords are so important to being found on LinkedIn, why is there so much mystery/confusion surrounding those keywords? Shouldn’t LinkedIn be telling us the specific keywords that brought other users to our Profile?

Instead of the unfathomable "Unknown" and vague "Other", LinkedIn should provide us with a search/source chain like this:

[Name/Anonymous] found you by [this activity] or [keyword] on [this date] and visited your Profile on [this date] via [LinkedIn] [LinkedIn search] [Group] [Pulse] [Update] etc.

WE SEARCH FOR NAMES (NOT SKILLS)

You know this to be true. How often have you used LinkedIn’s unified search box to search for a skill? How often have you used it to search for a name? 5% of my searches are on skills (or other search terms), 95% are name based. Which is the more informed search? When you search for someone by name, you've already identified someone, you may even have gone beyond skill/location/org and other qualifiers. We don’t even need to be logged in to LinkedIn to search - we can search on Google and quickly find someone’s public version of their LinkedIn Profile. LinkedIn is so vast and powerful in search engine land that it dominates name searches. The most important 'key' word on your LinkedIn Profile? Your name.

TRUST & KNOWLEDGE

Reid Hoffman, Co-Founder of LinkedIn recently raised a few eyebrows when he said that he would prefer to hire his friends.

If you’re choosing between working with someone who’s a trusted friend and a 7 out of 10 on competence, versus a stranger who’s a 9 out of 10 on competence, who should you pick? Answer: if the trusted friend is a fast learner, pick the trusted friend.

He explained that he already had trust in a friend, already had knowledge of that person’s abilities/character and said that both parties would work hard to make it work because of the pre-existing relationship. Makes perfect sense and reflects how we make decisions about forging new relationships in real life. Do you do a blind search on “Accountant” in “Chicago” or do you ask your lawyer buddies who the best accountant in Chicago is?

PEOPLE DISCOVERY

LinkedIn is superb at sending unsolicited people/activity information to people who are not connected with one another. LinkedIn shares information via Notifications, the Homepage, Pulse and Groups. If a user writes an update, creates a post, comments, mentions, shares, likes, follows or browses - that activity spreads across LinkedIn like skipping a smooth stone across a frozen lake. LinkedIn facilitates people discovery on a massive scale.

INFORMATION FORAGING THEORY

People tend to browse rather than search on large, complicated websites. There’s already a lot of research in this area, the most popular was by Pirolli and Card (1999). “Information Foraging Theory” in essence draws parallels with the way that animals hunt prey and refers to information as ‘scent’ ‘patches’ and ‘diet’. It's a fascinating theory. The majority of LinkedIn’s ‘information scent’ is wafted between non-connected users. LinkedIn is complicated by design, it is 'sticky', LinkedIn wants you to be on their platform as often and for as long as possible.

ENGINEERED SERENDIPITY

The desired outcome is to create collisions in the workplace. Those are serendipitous meetings between staff from different parts of the organization, such as when someone from engineering meets a little known colleague from marketing. There’s actually a name for it. It’s called engineered serendipity. There is a body of research that supports the positive impact of putting people from different areas of the organization into situations where they can literally collide

This quote comes from Steven Bell in Library Journal (Dec 17, 2014) and refers to disconnected colleagues in an organization. The theory he references is directly applicable to LinkedIn. LinkedIn wants us all to have potentially advantageous interactions, they don’t currently know and can’t track if good stuff actually happens but they do want us to collide, as often and with as many different LinkedIn users as possible.

STOP THE NONSENSE NOW PLEASE

So to all of the folks who insist on telling other folks that the best way to be found on LinkedIn is to use Keywords on your Profile: I say stop the nonsense, stop the lazy advice, stop talking about something which is widely misunderstood, misleading and leads to a false sense of hope. Adding so-called keywords (whatever they may be) anywhere on your LinkedIn Profile is not going to help you to be found.

Building an impressive showcase of your professional brand via a 100% completed, 100% mistake-free and 100% engaging Profile will certainly help to convince people that you are credible and good at what you say you do when you are browsed. But you should know that after you've built your stellar Profile presence capped with a Stunningly Good Summary, you're going to have to work your ass off to get noticed, add value and generally be a good LinkedIn citizen, to get ahead. Do work hard, do collide and get discovered but don’t count on being found by a word that an uninformed stranger tells you is somehow key.

Oh, and the biggest lie on LinkedIn? Don’t connect with people you don’t know.

I wrote “3 Stunningly Good LinkedIn Profile SUMMARIES” in early 2013. This post instantly became and remains to this day, a top Google search result for "LinkedIn Summary"....shared by over 2,600 people. Click here to read it.

Andy Foote is a LinkedIn coach and career transition expert, head on over to his incredibly well manicured LinkedIn profile to see his very tempting consulting menu and thoughtful recommendations https://www.linkedin.com/in/linkedinsights