Simply copy and paste the URL below into a browser bar and you can turn on and off invitations to each as shown below. They seem to default to ON as shown.

https://www.linkedin.com/psettings/entity-invitation-preference

If you are not having any issues, this may not apply. They come in waves it seems.

While you are there, it’s a good time to take a good look up/down each of the 4 tabs in the LinkedIn settings. New entries have probably come up since you’ve been there last. 

Some of the existing things that you know and remember may be gone or changed as well. It’s been quite active in 2019 and 2020.

Why do this? To save time and reduce your LinkedIn inbox clutter PLUS it’s important to have control over your LinkedIn settings for security reasons. This little trick should help.

The post Filter out unwanted invitations to follow companies and attend events from your LinkedIn Inbox appeared first on Integrated Alliances | Your LinkedIn Professional.

Auto Text Expander will help you engage your top targets on LinkedIn with customized responses based on designed templates. It turns your Inbox and profile visitors into appointments.

It’s essentially a web-based text pasting tool. There are multiple versions:

• Windows and Mac
• Free version for Google Chrome
• Downloaded application

Google Extension

This post covers the free web-based tool that includes a Chrome Browser extension.

So, gather up your LinkedIn messages for your specific audiences in a Google Doc or a Word file. You might have 5-10 messages total. I have 40-50 customized messages.

• Connection requests
• Welcome messages for new connections
  
• Messages to profile visitors
  
• Messages to your base of connections

Don’t have messages ready? Continue with the install process and come back. Best to write the actual message text in a Google Doc or Word file and then copy/paste it into the tool.

Fire Up Auto Text Expander

Find Auto Text Expander in the Google chrome web store or click on this link. Once installed, it loads up your dashboard with your messages and their triggers.

The dashboard is essentially a web page that matches up with the Chrome Extension running on your browser. Messages are stored in the cloud and the local Chrome extension pastes them into LinkedIn message “boxes” with a simple trigger like “;;a” in this example.

Connection Request entry:

Welcome Message entry:

I suggest a 3 character pattern when naming your triggers. Your trigger goes on the left and copy/paste your message text into the boxes at the right. Save it to the cloud and you are ready. SUPER simple.

Send Connection Request Messages with Auto Text Expander

Now you are ready to use Auto Text Expander. My most common uses are for things like connections requests, messages and even replies.

For example, when sending connection requests to new people, you might click CONNECT on their profile, proceed to “add a message” to make the most out of the opportunity.

Just enter the trigger (e.g. “;;a”) to paste in the message text from the cloud. It’s super fast. You MUST enter the trigger very quickly.

I found you on LinkedIn and thought we’d each benefit from connecting. I work with entrepreneurs, execs, sales pros and interesting people. Would you be open to connecting on LinkedIn?

Mike O’Neil

Personalizing Messages with Auto Text Expander

Create a stronger connection by personalizing the message after pasting. Add their name, mention something from their profile, tell them how you found them or just let the message go “as-is” if you just don’t have time. If you have Sales Navigator you might add a tag to track them later.

When sending messages to your connections, it really isn’t any different. The text is longer and you will likely want to customize it a bit more. If you have sales Navigator you really should consider adding tags to track who has received which messages. It avoids some awkward situations.  (Have no idea what this paragraph means) 

Syncing Auto Text Expander

If you have multiple computers, it can sync between them using the Import/Export and Cloud Backup capabilities. Use the same Google credentials to install the Google Chrome extension on each machine and it syncs up nicely.

BONUS – Advanced Tips straight from the source

• Add or edit your shortcuts on the fly through the (txt) icon that shows up next to the url bar.
• Shortcuts will auto-capitalize or auto-all-caps! Just capitalize the first letter in a multi-letter shortcut, or type the entire shortcut in caps to trigger all-caps.
• Omnibox (url address bar) now supported! Type ate  into the url address bar and hit the Tab key to activate! Then type your regular shortcuts to get live expanded suggestions.
• Clipboard paste macro now supported! Just use the %clip% tag to indicate where to insert the contents of the clipboard at that point in time.
• Date/time macros are supported! Wrap your date format with %d(dateFormat). Please see this for how to format dates in your expanded text. Example: %d(MMMM Do YYYY), and would expand to something like: September 4th 2013.
• Cursor placement is now supported in contenteditable divs! Just include the following special html tag in your expansion where you want the cursor to be placed after triggering the shortcut: <!–?atec?–>
• Add a space to the end of your shortcut if you want it to trigger after typing a space. Line breaks are supported in expanded text now! HTML can also be inserted into content-editable divs like Gmail.
• Backing up your shortcuts with the “Backup” button only makes an extra copy of them in Chrome’s local storage quota. This means if Chrome’s syncing gets messed up, you can restore from your backup, but if you sign out of your browser or uninstall the extension, you will lose your backup. You can get a copy of your shortcuts from the Import/Export dialog.
• Chrome has storage quota limits, so unfortunately you can’t have unlimited shortcuts of any size. Check the limits here.
• The new HTML5 input[type=email] field and a few others don’t allow for detection and setting of the cursor. Instead the extension will have to assume your cursor is at the end of the text and replace from there.
• Saving should sync across all Chrome browsers you login and sync with. First-time user? Here’s a few examples! Refresh your pages to use them.

Learning More

Auto Text Expander is one of a great set of tools we use in our LinkedIn Sales Navigator coaching and training programs. Learn LOTS more with the free Integrated Alliances Sales Navigator InfoGuide, a 4-page PDF packed with strategies for each of the most important areas of Sales Navigator.

The post Use Auto Text Expander, LinkedIn and Sales Navigator to save time appeared first on Integrated Alliances | Your LinkedIn Professional.

1. What’s new in the Advanced “type search”
2. What to focus on from the main screen (industries)
3. What to skip and NOT pay attention to (e.g. past companies)

I think EVERYONE will find it very helpful, even advanced users and Sales Navigator users. To go with it is this link to a downloadable/printable list of the “Official LinkedIn Industries” as LinkedIn.com no longer shows them. 

See the Official LinkedIn LinkedIn Industries HERE.

The post Quick Overview of the New LinkedIn.com Advanced Search appeared first on Integrated Alliances | Your LinkedIn Professional.

On the Sales Navigator search results screen you see a list of targets.

You can look at any one individual and and by clicking on the 3-Dot menu you have a link to a screen full of “similar people”:

These are people that LinkedIn has carefully selected for you using its “big data analytics” capabilities. There are 25 per page and I find the majority are a thumbs up. Here’s the best part…

You can jump from profile to profile and discover a lot of additional targets along the way. Each person leads to dozens or hundreds more. Invite, message, like, follow, comment, share – lots of actions can be taken.

To keep track of the best targets on-going, “View Their Profiles in Sales Navigator”…

and Save them as a Lead…

An an alternative, you might add a Sales Navigator Tag. They show on the right column of a profile in Sales Navigator. Pick an existing tag or add a new one own.

Fortunately, both Leads and Tags let you filter on and see a list to continue marketing. Watch for other simple LinkedIn lead generation ideas in this series.

The post LinkedIn Provided Leads in Sales Navigator appeared first on Integrated Alliances | Your LinkedIn Professional.

If you need help from LinkedIn, the LinkedIn trouble ticket system might be a great place to get a resolution. If you’ve worked at a large company, you might be familiar with this sort of process with your internal IT department.

These instructions are for fixing a problem, but the steps are the same if you just don’t know how to do something and want to get some help.

If you can’t get into your account at all, you especially need to see the video for getting help through Twitter.

Sales Navigator Issues

Do you have just LinkedIn or do you also have Sales Navigator? If it’s only LinkedIn, it will be a little easier. If you have both, be sure to read the second section as Sales Navigator has its own trouble ticket system with a dedicated team.

Getting Started

You can access the LinkedIn help system from the LinkedIn.com menu. Look at your face to the upper right of the screen. Click on the triangle under your image and select Help Center from the drop down menu.

LinkedIn.com Help Center

The Help Center Main Menu has 30+ links on it. Don’t worry, you only need to know about one link and you can’t even see it when you land.

Scroll to the very bottom and click on Contact us in the footer.

Welcome to the LinkedIn.com trouble ticket system

The Contact us link takes you here. You want to ‘Get help from us”.

Then you just describe the issue…

Then you complete the form.

Attachments

You might add an attachment, like a screenshot, to demonstrate your point. Make sure you know where the file is located.

Take A Final Look at Your LinkedIn.com Form

In the end, the LinkedIn.com trouble ticket entry screen looks like this. Take a long, last glance, correct anything that isn’t right and SUBMIT the trouble ticket. Catching a problem here will save days on the resolution.

Confirming Email

LinkedIn sends a confirming email so you know they have received it. It will include a case number that you may need at a later date. e.g. 160814-002939.

Resolving Your Problem

An additional email will follow and it will start the process. In some cases this first message will have nothing to do with your problem or it will be very generic – “try deleting our cookies”. They may send links to articles or ask for extra information to clarify the issue. Most likely, it will take several messages back and forth to get a resolution.

Checking Status Online

If you don’t get your matter resolved via the email system, come back to the LinkedIn.com Help Center and check the status of your trouble ticket. Click on your image in the upper right corner to display your active and closed trouble tickets (cases). You can go add more information or try and expedite the case if it does not seem to be progressing.

SALES NAVIGATOR ISSUES

LinkedIn has a separate support group and system for Sales Navigator users. Use this method for reporting Sales Navigator specific issues only, like “how do I get my Sales Navigator Leads into my Salesforce.com?” Answer – you can’t.

Of course, you must be able to access your Sales Navigator account to submit a trouble ticket using this method. If you cannot access your Sales Navigator account, simply use the LinkedIn.com system and say so in the text. They will re-assign the ticket to the right group.

This is how it all starts at the the top of Sales Navigator screen with the Support link. Click on it and pick “Help Center” from the drop down menu.

Welcome to the Sales Navigator Help Center

The Sales Navigator Help Center main screen also has 30+ links. It you can find your answer here you will save some time. In most cases, you will probably find that you will submit a trouble ticket.

Like with LinkedIn.com, scroll down to the bottom and select Contact us.

Describe Your Issue

Similar to the LinkedIn.com Help Center, enter something that describes your issue. In this case, it’s another common problem – “My tags are gone”.

Sales Navigator will try and find an automated answer for you. If you see something that solves your problem, you can save a lot of time. If not, click NEXT to proceed with process.

The Sales Navigator Entry Form

This form is a little bit easier than the LinkedIn.com form actually.

Need Assistance With

There are just a few options and, in most cases, “General Product Feature” will work best.

Do you pay with a Credit Card?

Next, the LinkedIn folks want to know if you pay for your subscription with a credit card. Those that work for a company that pays for Sales Navigator by invoice instead may be directed to a different support team. Those on a trial may be directed elsewhere. Most will say “yes” I paid with a credit card.

Your “Question”

After you breeze thru these first two steps, you can enter “your question”. As with LinkedIn.com, you can enter it here if it’s simple or you might create it elsewhere and copy/paste it in. If you will be attaching a file, tell them in the message to look for it.

Attachments

You might add an attachment, like a screenshot, to demonstrate your point. The support team really like these. Make sure you know where the file is located.

Consider making and sending both a full screenshot and cropped shot of the part of the screen that is most relevant. Many of the LInkedIn screens are quite busy and it is hard to see the subtle issues with them.

A Final Look at Your Sales Navigator Form

Confirming Email

As with LinkedIn.com, a confirming email will be sent to confirm that they received it. It will include a Sales Navigator case number that you may need at a later date.

Resolving Your Problem

You will receive an initial “true response” in one business day. The Sales Navigator support team is more advanced and more staffed up than the LinkedIn.com team. Generally, the support is faster and better than LinkedIn.com as well. Still, it’s likely that it will take several messages back and forth to get a final resolution.

Checking Status Online

If you don’t get things resolved via the email system, come back to the Sales Navigator Help Center and check the status of your trouble ticket by clicking on your image in the upper right corner as shown:

Your Cases

This location will show your active and closed trouble tickets (cases). You can go here to add more information or try and expedite the case if it does not seem to be progressing. Here are some real life examples of closed cases:

Integrated Alliances

Integrated Alliances works with executives, entrepreneurs and sales teams to help them get the most out of LinkedIn Sales Navigator for sales, marketing, networking and more. Our clients surpass their peers with our help.

Learn how to Navigate LinkedIn with the help of IA CEO and Founder Mike O’Neil, a 2-time Forbes Top 50 Social Media Power Influencer.

The post Getting Help from LinkedIn via Trouble Tickets and Twitter appeared first on Integrated Alliances | Your LinkedIn Professional.

To help our fellow LinkedIn users (and clients), here is a helpful list. Use it to filter your search results by 1 or more industries.

The post Official LinkedIn Industries appeared first on Integrated Alliances | Your LinkedIn Professional.

Here’s a quick look at some of the changes when viewing profiles. For those using the LinkedIn mobile app, it may look familiar. 

Profile Header 

Everything is centered which makes it easier to scan. Contact and Personal Info moved to the right side. Previous employment and industry are gone. 

A particularly big change is that your summary is now included in the profile header and it no longer says ‘Summary”. Only the first few sentences will be displayed and people will need to click “See more” to read your entire summary.

Posts & Activities

The section immediately under the profile header is posts and activities. It shows your most recent post and which posts you commented or liked. LinkedIn makes it easy for people to follow you by prominently displaying a Follow button. 

Sections Being Condensed

To simplify the profile look, the redesign is condensing several LinkedIn sections. 

EXPERIENCE SECTION

Five positions are displayed. You can list more but people need to click “see more” to view those positions. Also only the description for your first entry is fully displayed. For all your other experience descriptions, people will need to click “see description”.

EDUCATION SECTION

Three educational experiences are displayed on the profile. People need to click “see more” to view any additional degrees. As in the Experience section, only the description for your first entry will be fully displayed. For other descriptions, people need to click “see description”.

VOLUNTEERING EXPERIENCE AND CAUSES

Continuing the the new condensed style, three volunteer experiences are displayed. Again, people need to click “see more” to view those experiences and only the description for your first entry will be fully displayed. For the other descriptions, people will need to click “see description”.

FEATURED SKILLS & ENDORSEMENTS

Your top 3 skills are displayed instead of 10. The rest reside under View more. Also gone are the long line of photos of those who endorsed you for that skill. As you see below, LinkedIn will list one person and the number of other connections who endorsed you for that skill. 

RECOMMENDATIONS

A couple changes here. First, only 2 recommendations are displayed. The rest can be read by clicking View more. Second, it also appears LinkedIn listened to its users and broke the restriction that a recommendation is tied to a work experience. This enables people to make and receive recommendations including volunteer or industry association relationships.  

So What Do You Think? 

By condensing, the LinkedIn redesign provides a simpler, cleaner profile view. But at what cost? I fear many will not take the time to click to view additional, valuable text.  

I am also disappointed with the location of the summary section and the need to click to read the entire text. The summary gives readers a quick overview of who you are and what you are doing. Due to its location, I feel it will be overlooked.

What do you think about this redesign?  Leave your comments below. 

The post Big Redesign and Change in LinkedIn Profiles appeared first on Integrated Alliances | Your LinkedIn Professional.

After reviewing LinkedIn’s desktop redesign of a LinkedIn’s member profile, it appears some features will be going away – bye bye LinkedIn features. 

Specific Profile Sections

• Interests – this is disappointing as LinkedIn wants us to network more. They tease us into inviting people. With this gone we have little knowledge about them as a person. It provided a way for us to find common ground outside our professional work.
• Rich Media – while my friend’s videos are not currently displaying in the redesign, they are displaying on LinkedIn’s mobile app. As the desktop redesign is like the mobile app, I am hoping that the software to accommodate rich media just hasn’t rolled out yet. 
• Advice for Contacting You – your contact information will now be easier to find, being displayed to the right of the page. I like this quite a bit. Bummer.
• LinkedIn Groups – previously, profiles showed a list of LinkedIn groups you belong to. I liked this feature when viewing other profiles as I learned about their interests and discovered groups I didn’t know existed. Bummer.
• Languages – it puzzles me why this is gone as it is some employers want to find people with multiple languages skills. I don’t really use it, but I see how some folks could really miss it.
• Causes – many people did not know causes existed within the Volunteer Experiences. I don’t think it will be missed by very many.
• Organizations – people struggled with what should do into this section. I have been using it to list my professional memberships. Won’t miss it much.
• Marital Status – I tell most people to leave this alone anyhow so no biggie.
• Birthday – this has been a great feature and I always get leads from my birthday. Lit looks like this SUPER NICE feature will be no more. Bummer.

Twitter Posting

When you share your posts, you were able to Tweet about the post at the same time. In reality, this feature was never really that useful. The links were usually ugly and the tweets were often malformed. You wrote the message to fit on LinkedIn, not on Twitter after all.

Relationship Section

For Advanced LinkedIn users, the relationship section was a built-in CRM. It provided a place to input notes, seeing your messages to that individual, categorize them through tagging, know the date you connected, and even set reminders. It is my belief the deletion of this section is being done to push users of this feature to LinkedIn’s Sales Navigator program.

Viewed Statistics

When you looked to see who viewed your profile, you were greeted with a dashboard which provided statistics on number of profile views, projected views and actions you have taken on LinkedIn. This will now be condensed into number of profile views and if that is an increase or decrease from previous week.

Advanced Search

While you are still able to searches and filter your list, you will have less filtering options available.

• Search by zip code and distance; now only by metro/region option.
• Groups – only 1^st, 2^nd, and 3^rd+ filters are available
• Company size – totally gone

I’ll dive deeper into Advanced Searches in an upcoming blog. 

In Summary

With a redesign, we often say goodbye to standard features. The impact to you will be based on how you use LinkedIn.

This is a review is based on an early tester’s profile. Roll-outs happen in stages. Some of these features may appear back on LinkedIn in the upcoming months, especially if members demand them.

If there are things that negatively affect your use of LinkedIn, be sure to contact them. There is a Feedback link found on your LinkedIn home page. 

We Want To Know 

No its Bye Bye LinkedIn features, at least for a few.

Tell us what features will you miss most?  Let us know in the comments below. 

The post Bye Bye LinkedIn Features appeared first on Integrated Alliances | Your LinkedIn Professional.

LinkedIn’s redesign of their mobile app and now desktop is to provide an elegant and sophisticated experience for LinkedIn members. In doing this, some features that we currently use in the Business Plus premium plan were no longer there.

Tag, Note and Reminder 

In the Relationship section, LinkedIn provides three key features: tag, note and reminder. None of these features were part of the desktop redesign that we saw. A number of advanced LinkedIn users use tagging to organize their connections for quicker searching, add notes regarding that connection, and set reminders for when they wish to reconnect.

Before your profile receives the desktop redesign, you should request an archive of your data from LinkedIn. Included in the archived data will be your tags and notes. Follow these simple steps to request your data: 

• Go to your picture icon in the upper right side of the menu bar
• Click on Privacy & Settings
• Scroll to and click on “Getting an archive of your data”

The information will come to you in two installments. The first installment arrives very soon after your request is submitted. The information arrives in a series of csv files. 

A second installment which includes your tags and notes will be sent to you with 24 hours. NOTE – the archive is only good for 72 hours. 

Now you know how simple it can be to archive your data. Consider setting a regular schedule to archive your data like you do for any important CRM information. 

Tagging Now on Sales Navigator

Recently LinkedIn added tags and notes to their Sales Navigator product (the more expensive plan for businesses). LinkedIn users who heavily rely on these features may want to consider Sales Navigator. 

Stay Tuned!

For the next few weeks, Mike and I will share what we have learned about the LinkedIn desktop redesign and more about Sales Navigator to help you prepare for the changes. Next up – what are the other features we didn’t see in the desktop redesign.  

We Want To Know 

How important is the tagging and notes feature for you? Would you consider using Sales Navigator to have those features? Leave your answers in the comment section.

The post Before LinkedIn Changes again, Archive Data! appeared first on Integrated Alliances | Your LinkedIn Professional.

Sales Navigator is a powerful sales tool plays very well in SOME parts of the LinkedIn user community, while being less important in many others. Let’s explore this here together.

Sales Navigator is a completely different universe than LinkedIn. Users are EITHER in LinkedIn OR they are in Sales Navigator. It is not an extension like a premium account. In fact, many users (myself included) pay for LinkedIn premium accounts IN ADDITION to paying for our Sales Navigator accounts.

Fundamentally these are the most important features of Sales Navigator:

• Search for new prospects (companies and people) on LinkedIn using Lead Builder. This is akin to Advanced Search. The results can be saved as Leads.
• With LinkedIn’s help, find new decision makers within these firms and save them as Leads for follow-up.
• Monitor the activity of your Leads and Accounts and engage them with a Like, Comment or Share. This collection of activity data is just not possible without Sales Navigator. The work to do this is simply too much for anyone.
• Utilize InMails to reach out to people deeper in your network. A LinkedIn premium account can also do this.
• Accounts in Salesforce.com can also appear in Sales Navigator.
• The company can pay for and manage the Sales Navigator licenses.

The Top Feature of Sales Navigator

From my consulting with sales managers and VP’s of sales, the top feature seems to be the ability to uncover new decision makers in targeted accounts, especially LARGE accounts. If you call on smaller firms, it isn’t too hard to identify the decision maker. Large accounts are another animal all together.

It only takes finding one extra decision maker that makes one extra deal happen to make the entire LinkedIn Sales Navigator program worthwhile. It really solves some big headaches for hunters and farmers.

Big firms are really hard to sell to. They have lots of divisions, each with it’s own set of decision makers. More divisions means more upper management and these individuals, while ON LinkedIn, are generally less visible and can be hard to learn about.

Enter Sales Navigator to help uncover these additional decision makers for you. It will find them and suggest you save them as a Lead. It will then let you monitor their activity so you can engage them indirectly. When you like or comment on something they have posted, it gets noticed. When you send that InMail or reach out and call them later on, it is better received. 

So, who benefits the most from Sales Navigator?

Lots of people benefit from Sales Navigator, but it’s companies that call on large firms, perhaps those with over 5,000 employees, that really benefit the most. This tool helps them discover previously unknown decision makers and it provides a nifty system to engage with them. You might be a smaller firm calling on larger firms or you might be large firm as well. It’s the size of your CUSTOMERS that ultimately help you decide if LinkedIn Sales Navigator is right or you.

Many firms receive a simple training on Sales Navigator from LinkedIn. It’s a nice overview of what the menu options are. Integrated Alliances takes it MUCH FURTHER with a curriculum-based approach to implementing LinkedIn and Sales Navigator in sales teams. We’ve been training sales teams and consulting with marketing and sales management since 2006.

If you would like to discuss your team and how they can close more deals using LinkedIn, LinkedIn Sales Navigator and Social Selling, sign up for a free 30-minute call at www.ScheduleWithMike.com.

Mike O’Neil is the world’s first LinkedIn trainer and Integrated Alliances is the world’s first Social Media consulting firm. This tenure is unmatched and the insight it brings to the table is equally unmatched anywhere in the world.

The post Who Benefits Most from LinkedIn Sales Navigator appeared first on Integrated Alliances | Your LinkedIn Professional.