In the first addition of our LinkedIn article series, we discussed how to make the most out of your profile by sprucing up your Summary and Experience sections. This month, we’re going to walk you through one of the most intimidating-yet-enriching parts of this professional media behemoth: The Activity Wall.
The Basics
At the most fundamental level, the Activity Wall is something of a “live feed” of everything that’s happening on the LinkedIn website that its algorithm believes you’d be interested in. Here, you’ll find:
- people’s “updates” of notes or professional observations;
- “posts” that fellow “connections”—LinkedIn’s version of a “friend” list, almost like a professional Rolodex—have written on their LinkedIn-hosted blog (connected to the profile); and
- various pictures and videos that people feel their colleagues might be interested in.
Companies are active on LinkedIn, too. If you “follow” a company, you might get updates similar to those from individuals—often industry insights you couldn’t otherwise easily find, so it’s not all advertisements. Of course, like any other free social media platform these days, you’ll also get your fair share of “sponsored” or paid advertisements, but you can always press the gray arrow on the top right corner and request to never see ads from that company again.
You can do the same for annoying connections who share shallow or unprofessional items—and there are connections who do that—making your Wall as useful as you need it to be. If you’re feeling especially generous, you might privately message those connections to let them know that you feel some of their content isn’t appropriate for a professional setting, but that tactic is usually best reserved for people you know well professionally. (Note that if you decide to unfollow someone, he or she won’t be notified.)
Climbing Your Wall
The Activity Wall, as we mentioned before, is fairly close to “live,” which means that older updates can be found by scrolling down your Wall; new content is automatically displayed above older material. Clicking immediately off of your Wall on the latest updates without taking the time to see what others have contributed earlier might lead to missing great links or updates.
The Activity Wall is also the easiest and fastest way in which to engage your network. Instead of visiting every connection’s profile to see what’s changed or what they’ve found recently, the Wall displays them as updates. You can learn about a colleague’s promotion, a new job, or thoughts on how to overcome a particular organizational bottleneck by scrolling through these insights.
Each update also includes a space to “like” the link or idea, as well as a comment box. This function truly harnesses the great potential that is LinkedIn: A place in which to share and comment on your fellow colleague’s ideas and innovations. The more active you are on LinkedIn, the more likely it is that when you have something of value to share, people will be willing to listen.
In the next issue, we’ll talk more about crafting LinkedIn updates and posts that people will want to share. In the meantime, head over to LinkedIn and find out what your connections have been up to!
Additional ISM resources:
The Source for Private School News Vol. 14 No. 4 LinkedIn for Administrators, Part One: Spruce Up Your Profile
The Source for Business Managers Vol. 13 No. 6 4 Reasons Why You Should Be On LinkedIn
Additional ISM resources for Gold Consortium members:
I&P Vol. 40 No. 10 Marketing Communications and the Student
I&P Vol. 34 No. 10 Professional Development During Hard Economic Times
