One of the best things about LinkedIn is that as your connections move around from one company to the next, they are automatically updating your contact list for you as they update their profiles. However, did you know that you can edit their information on your own? In fact, you may have done so already if you have your contact information synced with your email or phone contacts. First I will review a couple updates for your own profile, then I will introduce you to a friend of mine who needs some updating.

As we work through this exercise, keep an eye out for the pencil, this will show you what you can edit. Any time you see this symbol you have the power to make a change.

Clean your own house first

Before you start messing with others, be sure your information is in order. This is especially worth checking if you have changed positions since you first set up your profile. Many times people will update their current employer but forget to update the company name or position displayed in the top section of their profile, leading you to believe they are still with their former employer. You can even add a former name to your profile by choosing to edit your name. Something else you may consider is taking a second look at your location. When you first set up your profile, it defaults to your city based on your zip code. However you can edit this to the general region in the edit profile page. Whether or not you choose to be more specific or general is a personal choice as long as you know the option is there.

Also worth checking in your contact information section are your website and social media links. This is a separate function from your web links in employment history and more often than not people do not update the link to their new company website in this section. This displays the text ‘company website’ or ‘personal website’ meaning that you will not notice where it is linked to until you click on the link, so this is not an obvious update to make until you go looking for it.

Don’t forget you have the choice to share the changes you make. You may not want to post with every change so look for this icon to the right of your profile before you start.

Time to update my connection

To illustrate the fact that you can update a connection’s information, I would like to introduce you to my good, yet boring, friend ‘Update Me’.

‘Update Me’ just joined LinkedIn and has yet to upload a great profile image but I am sure he will work up to that. Let’s change what we can for him. You may have noticed and perhaps even clicked on the two icons directly below your connection’s basic information.

The first icon is the ‘relationship’ icon. In this section you can see when you connected with this contact, recent conversations, as well as add notes and tags to remind yourself of your history together. This is helpful for contacts that you may have met through LinkedIn or do not know as well: where you may find a reminder handy.

Next is the ‘contact info’ icon. I use this quite a bit to track down an old friend or reach out to a potential lead or recruiter. This is a great back-door option for those using a basic profile or who have run out of In-Mail messages. Always be respectful and avoid spamming when using this method: doing it the right way can be rewarding.

By clicking on the ‘contact’ icon, you can see the information for your connection. In many cases this will display multiple phone numbers and email addresses. This will especially be true in the case where your information auto-populated from your phone or outlook contacts prior to your connection changing positions. This is the part you may not have known you could change. Now click on ‘edit this contact information’ and see what happens!

As you see above there will be some pieces of the information you can edit and others you can not. Anything displaying a pencil is able to be changed by you. This is helpful in cases where a contact may choose not to display their email or phone number but through getting to know them they have shared it with you. In this case you can store the info here so it is always handy. Also if they changed numbers and your contact file for them is still showing a conflicting number, you can delete the obsolete information. Any information in this section with the LinkedIn logo next to it, is populating from the connections information and is not able to be changed by you. In theory this should be the most current information, but if you notice outdated info, it might be a good excuse to drop them a line. Or putting it in LinkedIn terms: stay connected!

Helpful or one more thing to track down and update?

 

While we all have plenty to do, I do not recommend running through the contact info and trying to play catch up with every one of your contacts. That said, this can be useful for those ‘outer rim’ connections. You know the type, the connections you catch up with and are developing a network with though you do not know them well enough to have their information top of mind. Or perhaps you only interact with them through LinkedIn so you do not have their information stored elsewhere. In these cases, I find this function very useful.

Thank you for once again learning with me. Have you used these functions to better track your connections? Do you see a new benefit to what you can do with your information? Please share your thoughts in the comments section below. And as always a thumbs up will let me know if this was helpful for you.

Andy Vargo is a motivational speaker, life coach and comedian who challenges you to ‘Own Your Awkward’. He is the author of the Awkward Journal series, host of the podcast, Own Your Awkward, and shares thoughts and ideas in his blog and video series available at awkwardcareer.com.

Originally published on LinkedIn March 19, 2015