AI Can't Do This: Answer Your LinkedIn Questions Fully & Accurately

In this blog, I am going to answer some LinkedIn questions that were asked by a client. This is a person I work with in one of my VIP coaching packages where I work with you one-on-one for an intensive two hour coaching session.

In this particular scenario, as with all of my clients who purchase this package, I go through their profile from top to bottom. They do a screen share. We focus a lot on profile optimization. We also talk a bit about growing your network and then posting and network engagement. And then I include an accountability phone call, which is scheduled one month later for 30 minutes.

It's kinda like the "phone a friend, checking in, making sure you get your homework done and that you're being held accountable to the progress that you're making. But I also tell my clients at the end of the call, you're a client for life. So you can email me any time if you have any questions, or you can send me a direct message with your questions.

And this is an unlimited ongoing thing. I always let my clients know that. If it's a question that requires more intensive instruction, we might need to schedule a future coaching call. In most circumstances, I can email them back or I might have a podcast or a blog or a video or a resource. And if I don't, then I use their questions for content.

QUESTION: When you review my profile again before our accountability call, please check out my headline. You liked it as is on the last meeting, but feel free to double check. Also, you wrote, the headline has 69 characters visible on a desktop and 46 visible on mobile.

Now, just a quick aside here, this person. Prior to working with me on the VIP coaching package, also purchased a  copy of my book, which is called Social Media Pie, how to Enjoy a Bigger Slice of LinkedIn. The book was published in 2020 and actually finished writing the content at the end of 2019. Now, there have been a couple changes in the platform since then, which I'll address in some of these questions, but in particular.

When some of the features change, I make sure that I'm talking about them on LinkedIn, but I haven't updated the book in five years. So just a little caveat there. Now in this scenario, I think this was an interpretation of what they were reading in the book, because the headline, it varies how many characters are visible on desktop and on the mobile app. So usually I recommend that you look at your own headline in your activity section and you'll see how much of it is viewable there. And then look at it on the mobile app as well in the activity section. And it's a general guideline, like 40 to 60 characters, 40 to 80 characters that I use in there. But just be aware of what appears in the preview able space. Okay. So now going back to the person's request the person said:

...and that your own showed a 106 characters, but mine showed more to my laptop. Seems fine to me, but please look at this issue when you review my headline for optimization.

Okay, so my response is look at your own headline from the desktop, from the mobile view. You're not gonna be able to know who is looking at your headline and which view they're looking on and what type of a device, whether it's an iPhone or an Android or desktop or tablet.

So there's really no way to optimize it across every platform for every device. So that's why I recommend you look at it from your own view, from the desktop, from the mobile view, and just see what appears in that viewable area rather than trying to get to a specific character count with the visible area.

QUESTION: You recommend turning off viewers of this profile also viewed, but I can't find it, nor when I follow the instructions on ChatGPT, could you please provide the path?

This is actually a feature that LinkedIn no longer has available to us, so this is just something that they're periodically gonna show our profile to other people. We can no longer shut it off on here. So unfortunately. It's gone. The book will need to be updated with that new update, and that's probably why ChatGPT couldn't find it as well. And by the way, quick aside I think there's great use for chat GPT and all the tools and things like that are out there, but reaching out to a real live human being. 

And in this case, someone like me who specializes in LinkedIn to answer this question.

ChatGPT didn't tell this person this was a feature that was no longer available on LinkedIn. So a case in point here for why ChatGPT and all the AI tools aren't gonna be the answer to everything and it's not gonna be able to replace humans because we as humans, as an expert with our body of knowledge, we have the ability to know when things are updating.

And for someone like me who goes really deep on the platform, I know why this doesn't exist anymore. ChatGPT didn't. 

QUESTION: This is a question you recommended that only level one connections should be able to see my email address. Should I also add my level two or even level three connections?

Now my assumption here is that this person is referring to within your contact info, by default only your first level connections can see your email address. See link here for "Visibility of Your Email Address" from LinkedIn Help.

There's actually a way that you can set your visibility and I've always known that you have the ability to turn it off, so it's only visible to me. No one can see in your email address, and the default will be first degree connections, which is only those that are directly connected to you can see your email address.

Now, there are two other settings in here as well, and I typically wouldn't recommend these.

• The first one is first and second degree connections, so that would be letting other people that have a common connection see your email address.
• And then anyone on LinkedIn, where any LinkedIn member viewing your profile can see your email address.

Now, I'm gonna speak to those of you who your goal is to use LinkedIn for business development to create good connections who might be interested in doing business with you, not selling to you. Doing business with you, referring business to you. These aren't lazy salespeople or bots or things like that.

So if you were to change it to second degree connections or anyone, yes, it makes your email more accessible in the contact info, which is where the spammers and the bots and the salespeople will look to find your email address. That's really important because as a LinkedIn coach, as a LinkedIn strategist, I recommend that you sprinkle your email address throughout your LinkedIn profile.

So you're gonna make it easy for human beings to find it in other places, not the salespeople, and the spammers and the bots. So I personally wouldn't recommend making your email in your contact info visible to second degree connections or to anyone via your Contact info on LinkedIn because that just makes it easier for the people you don't wanna have access to your email address to get them access. 

QUESTION: In the featured section, there are some recommendations to also add highlights from my profile, such as award education, experience recommendations, et cetera. I feel like that's a bit overkill. Thoughts?

Now, in this case, I know as a LinkedIn strategist, as a LinkedIn expert, that they are referring to when you go inside your LinkedIn profile and you click on plus sign "+" in the featured section, it will give you the ability to add features to other sections of your profile.

Now, this person is asking this question. I believe they have business premium because what I'm doing right now is I'm looking at my profile online and I'm going to the featured section, and when I click on the plus sign, the options that will appear underneath that are:

• add a post
• add a newsletter
• add an article
• add a link
• or add media.

Now I did need to double check this, and this is another feature you sometimes can't get from those Chat PTO tools or other AI tools. The ability to know that things are changing on the LinkedIn platform or when there's nuances between the different subscriptions. So I have premium career, I've used premium business, I've used sales navigator, I've used the free basic version of LinkedIn as well.

This is something within the featured section, the question that the person is asking. They're a premium business client, and the feature they're referring to, is the ability to spotlight details from different sections of your profile and including experience, licenses, certifications, recommendations, courses, honors and awards skills, projects, or education that is only available to you if you are a premium business, sales navigator or recruiter Subscriber. 

So going back to their question, should you add that? I think you gotta go with what are your goals for using LinkedIn and how does highlighting any of those areas help to achieve your LinkedIn goals?

I personally don't feel like I would put any of those items inside featured. I like to think about the featured section as like an end cap at the grocery store, and I want you to think about this the next time you go to the grocery store, pay attention to what they have on the end of the aisles.

Those are products that are fast moving, they're probably paid for by those manufacturers. Or those products, they're probably seasonal. Right now as I'm typing, it's November 16th here in the United States. Thanksgiving is coming up. If I were to go to my local Kroger, I'm probably gonna see an end cap near the baking aisle with a bunch of products related to baking pies and things like that for Thanksgiving, cinnamon and nutmeg and brown sugar, right?

If I go there a few weeks later, I'm probably gonna see some Christmas cookies and Hanukkah things that are on the end of the aisle, and they do that because they're looking to feature things they want us to put in our cart?

So, instead of putting on honors and awards and education in your featured section on LinkedIn, I would say your featured section should feature things that you want your customer to put in their cart, so to speak.

At least one of those items should be a link to do business with you, whether it's booking a discovery call or a direct page on your website where they can sign up to work with you. The other two items, I would say feature things that are helping to highlight your expertise, your service offering.

Sometimes I like to do a recent post that's getting a lot of engagement. Sometimes I might feature a video or an animated gif or something in there, but I don't think it's worth putting those other items. This person is describing it as "overkill." I just think it's a misuse of that section. I think there's better ways to use the featured section.

QUESTION: Regarding who can see my connections in place. You say in on one place you say, to make them visible so they can see you run that you see that you run with the right crowd. But then the next page you say, not to make them visible. If you're an executive and people are just mining your connections. Since I wanna show that I work with leaders almost exclusively, shouldn't I just let people see my connections?

Now, in this case, inside my book, I explain both options for showing conections. I don't think there's a one size fits all answer for this type of scenario.

Some people choose to make their connections visible and in this case, so you can see who they're affiliated with, you're running with the right crowd is what this person referring to. I personally like that as a default.

When I work with executives, this is often C-Suite or people who are very protective, who use their LinkedIn as a Rolodex. They usually do not show their connections to others, and they also typically don't have a large connections list. In certain scenarios, I work with people where they know everyone that they're first connections with, they've met them in person. That they would do business with, they could pick up the phone with, et cetera.

So they really wanna be protective of that list for the most part.

I don't recommend that you hide your connections if you're using LinkedIn for business development to grow your network strategically, I would say make those connections visible.

So again, it's not a one size fits all, and that's why inside the book, I give you both sides to consider in there.

QUESTION: There is a recommendation. I should put my birth date in the contact info, and this is a recommendation from LinkedIn. That way, it will pop up as a notification to my network and I may get some engagement from that. What are your thoughts? Personally, I think it's a little hokey to show my birthday. Plus I have many more and better ways to get engagement. Plus there could be age discrimination.

Generally speaking, I do not recommend that you show your birthday on your LinkedIn profile. I always think it's a bit odd when I'm in like a sales call with someone or a discovery call and I look at their profile and it's their birthday and it's like that day. Should we acknowledge it? Should I sing? I'm just kidding. I'm not gonna sing to them.

But I feel like LinkedIn has that field in place and it's a misuse of the network. If I want you to know my birthday, I'm probably friends with you on Facebook or friends with you in real life, right? And you will know my birthday.

I don't believe that there's value in showing your birthday on LinkedIn because I feel like it's more of a personal item. You can shut it off. Or even better just choose the word month and the word day and then clear it out entirely, because. Honestly, why do we need to have LinkedIn having that information about us?

Now, the only people that I've talked to in my years of being a LinkedIn coach that like having their birthday on their profile, are people who work in a mortgage banking and people who work in real estate and they like it. Sometimes people that work in insurance too.

They like this feature because there are certain people that will just watch for network notifications. When they see a birthday notification, they just automatically use the LinkedIn templated, text that says, "happy Birthday Kenny." And then the person replies back and says, "thanks. How are things going for you so far in 2025? Are you thinking about buying or selling your home?"

So now they've got an entree to start a conversation, to start a sales pitch with the person.

I don't believe that there's any great value in that. And sometimes I work with people who are in fields like information security or who are in the C-suite, and I see that their birthday is showing and I always say, you probably shouldn't show it either. That's not a good thing to show your birthday.

It's one of those fields that's really personally identifying information we really shouldn't show on the profile. I don't know that I would say hokey. I think misplaced, for a professional networking site. Maybe hokey, maybe you're right there. And I think there are better ways to get engagement.

The age discrimination thing, it only shows month and date. It does not show years, only month and date. So I don't know that age discrimination could come into play there. But I do appreciate where you're thinking, where you're going with the logic there.

QUESTION: Would it be a great advantage to the algorithms, my branding, et cetera, to take my 18,000 connections and all who don't meet my ICP? (ideal customer profile, ICP) My ICP is leaders, particular HR related leaders in $10 million plus companies, and just disconnect from the rest. It might be substantially smaller, which might hurt my branding algorithms, et cetera.

IMHO, it's negative time spent going through and culling your connections list and removing people who don't meet your ICP list.

Now, LinkedIn allows you to have up to 30,000 connections. Followers are unlimited. There are 1.3 billion members on LinkedIn, so you can have as many as 1.3 billion followers essentially, but connections, you can only have 30,000. So if you're nearing 30,000, you might need to remove connections, to make space for people that are your ICP.

Now, what I did, and this is what I recommend to all of my clients, is if you're working on growing your LinkedIn network, be more strategic from today forward about who you accept into your network. They should either be your ICP, or a potential referral partner. You might extend that to people who are in your geography that you serve as well.

People that are only looking to sell to you, that are outside of your geography that don't make any sense whatsoever. Don't accept them. They will still follow you, and I'll talk a little bit more about that later. But in terms of going through and removing those connections, I think that's negative time spent.

I think it's better spent to grow your network, to focus on content that's reaching the right people. Eventually, if they're not the right person, you're not gonna show up in their homepage feed anymore. And by reducing your connections list, you could be potentially decreasing the reach of your posts by having a smaller connection list.

QUESTION: Are all of my connections, my followers, and vice versa? If not, what's the difference and what does that mean for me in goals for one rather than the other? 

No, not necessarily. Now, if someone invites you to connect, they're automatically following you. As they wait for you to decide whether to accept or decline that invitation, if you accept it, they now become both a connection and they're still following you.

Now there's a way you can go to a profile and you can just click on follow or go into the more button, click on follow, and you can be following a person without connecting. You can also connect with people and you can choose to unfollow them, and they won't be notified of that. You won't be able to see that when you unfollow.

You will not see their posts in your homepage feed. So unfollow is a softer way of reducing. Your, their exposure to you. I will say without removing them as a connection entirely, or a one step deeper, that would be blocking them entirely. So the difference here, followers a one-way action. It means that you can start to see the person's post in your homepage feed.

Potentially when other people interact with them. Their posts will come up in the homepage feed. You don't have the ability to send them a direct message. You don't have the ability to see all of their con contact information if you click on their contact information in there as well. Okay.

Connection is a two-way action. Someone initiates inviting you, the other person has to accept, then you will be following them. By default, unless you choose to unfollow, you also have the ability to direct message them and you see all of their contact information. 

QUESTION: Is my analytics available to others who are viewing my profile?

No. Analytics is private to you. The only scenario where they might see it is if you are sitting next to them with your laptop open and they look over your shoulder. But other than that, analytics is only visible to you from your profile.

QUESTION: In the about section, I just added my website. Can I hyperlink it within the about or will it just stay as unlinked text?

In some versions of LinkedIn on the mobile app, web addresses that we put inside our about section, are becoming hyperlinks, for the most part on the desktop, they are not clickable, but someone could copy it and open link in a new tab. 

So there's not a way that you can add a hyperlink because LinkedIn doesn't allow at this time for HTML coding in the About section, but keep it as unlinked text with the full H-T-T-P-S because in some versions of the mobile app, they will be able to click on it from there.

QUESTION: I can add multiple websites in the contact info section. I thought about adding a schedule a call link and schedule a meeting link that goes to a Calendly or in the Contact us page on my website. I could also add the third website from one of my other pages on our site, such as any of the solutions or why work with my company, such as case studies, et cetera. Thoughts?

I'm recommending that your contact info be visible to your first level connections, and I want you to think about when someone clicks on that and they are a first level connection, you wanna give them a path for doing business with you.

So what are the three web pages, where you'd like them to visit next, after they've done visiting your profile? A lot of times I see people with nothing in there at all, or they just put their homepage and that's it.

But I want you to think about, you don't need to put the homepage. You can put a secondary page like a contact us or services.

You can also send them to your Calendly or to your TidyCal or your booking link in there as well.

What I don't recommend is that you send them from one social media site. I mean it's a professional networking site, LinkedIn, but it's essential social media. I wouldn't send them from LinkedIn to Facebook or to YouTube.

I'd wanna send them from LinkedIn to a path to do business with you, and you can certainly change up those links periodically. But yes, in this case, I think adding schedule a call or schedule a meeting link would be a good thing. As well as a page with case studies or think about what's the path for them to do business with you in that customer journey if they're looking to learn more about you first.

I think the case studies could be an excellent use of that section as well.

QUESTION: you mentioned to review the interest section, and take out anything controversial. That brings up how to maximize the effectiveness of this section. I see this showing we are connected to the right groups, increasing our brand, but other than that, are there any benefits and ways to maximize its effectiveness? Such as do the groups I'm connected to see my posts, can I add some link to the posts that sends to the group feed? Can I also add one of my posts directly on a group feed? One was to check groups to see if they're active, which I will do. I think that was a recommendation in your book. Please advise or point me to a page in your book or a place on your website or post that I can go to find out all of this.

Your "Interests" section is all the way at the bottom of your profile. Most people aren't gonna scroll down and look all the way at the bottom of your profile. So I'm gonna address what I mentioned in the book in the first part, which is just make sure there's nothing controversial in there in, in terms of, public figures, politics, things like that.

If you wanna show those things, great, but just be aware you might lose business because of your affiliations, if there's anything controversial in there. I personally like to keep LinkedIn pretty non-controversial because there might be nice people who just share different values than you on there.

Outside of that, most people don't look at this section. They don't scroll all the way down to the bottom. If you are doing prospecting, business development, things like that, you might look at people's profiles that you're connected with that have really not responded to you. Maybe they're active on LinkedIn, but they haven't accepted your invitation.

You're commenting on their posts, they're not replying back, et cetera. Look and see the common groups that you share, or maybe public figures and things like that, and you certainly could start interacting in those places to make yourself more visible and more of a trusted connection in there for yourself.

You can use this as a place to quickly jump into the groups that you're a part of or look at some of the other pages that you're following and things like that in there as well, so you can use it for yourself. I don't really feel like this is the best use of your time to spend a ton of time in the Interests section of your profile.

I would probably spend your time more productively in other areas of your profile. I would say in this scenario, this might be better answered in a one-on-one coaching call where we can look through this together. We can talk more about your LinkedIn goals, and I can help you to figure out how to use your time most effectively and successively on there.

Interested in my 1:1 LinkedIn Strategy Services? 

https://www.mellermarketing.com/1-to-1-linkedin-coaching 

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