I tend to accept connections only from people I have met or I’ve got to know through other social media channels. Having said that, I’ve been quite active in some ‘writing’ and ‘social media’ groups too and I’m making connections with some other members after engaging with them within the group. Growing them slowly has meant that they have been over 500 for some time and I had no idea what the total is.

Well, I recently needed to know the total number of connections and followers for all of my social media platforms and I must have spent at least ten minutes searching for my total number of LinkedIn connections. There’s a few different ways to find it but this is the quickest and easiest.

Finding Your Linkedin Connections

Click on ‘Home’ so you are viewing the news feed.

Scroll down a little and you’ll see your total number of connections in the right side bar. You can then click on it to see all of your connections – particularly convenient for if you wish to remind yourself of some of them, re-connect and engage, or consider asking some for recommendations.

Yes, it’s as easy as that. Easy when you know how but infuriating when you don’t!

The post Tuesday’s Tip: How To Find Your Number of LinkedIn Connections appeared first on Write On Track.

A comment by Brendan Cullen of Survey Guru on my post on the latest LinkedIN endorsements feature got me thinking. Here’s what Brendan had to say:

Well what are people looking for from it? Personally I want it to signify people’s true expertise in particular areas. It’ll provide that only so long as it’s based on merit and not just people playing the numbers game…

Brendan makes a very valid point and I’d like to address it in this follow up post today.

I certainly see the potential for abuse of this new feature – human nature and  examples like Klout suggests this could quickly become a quid pro quo arrangement and therefore largely devalued. However, it’s here and it’s staying for now, so how should we prepare for it?

I wrote my previous post for LinkedIN users to think about how they should highlight their skills and expertise. So many users have incomplete profiles and this seems like a good opportunity to complete them more thoroughly. Maybe it’s time to add more skills, or cull some of those you have listed. I am also finding the endorsements feature is a way to re-connect with other LinkedIN users who I may not have connected with online for some time – sending them emails to thank them for their endorsement and in one case making an arrangement to meet for coffee.

In conclusion, I think so long as we don’t get too caught up in making this a LinkedIN strategy, I am happy to embrace it for now. How about you? Do you think it is pretty meaningless overall or can you see some value to LinkedIN endorsements?

The post LinkedIN Endorsements: A Follow Up appeared first on Write On Track.