LinkedIn: Are you in the Top 1%? If so, bummer!

LinkedIn recently reached out to 10 million of its members with a ‘Congratulations’ for having one of the Top 1% [or Top 5%] most viewed profiles in 2012. This was their way of ‘thanking’ those that contributed to its 200 million member milestone.

Great news, right? Not so fast. That all depends on why people are seeking you out. For many, I suspect they are down right proud of such an accomplishment…one in which they had no idea they were shooting for until LinkedIn said, “Congratulations.”

As for me, I am a bit more cynical on why people are looking at my profile that often. Is it because I am special? Can’t be. I know me. So what, then?

With social selling becoming a much more significant way to prospect, what LinkedIn may actually be calling out is that those in this elite group are getting the top 1-5% of the solicitations from hungry sales people. So my special notification from LinkedIn would have been more appropriate, had it said…

“Jeff, congratulations! You are in the Top 1% that is most likely to get solicited!”

Of course, I am over-generalizing in terms of how this is used and I certainly realize the many benefits of being found where people are searching, but it is interesting seeing the different perspectives on the topic.

For instance, the other day I read a post of one SEO Consultant on his achievement of the Top 1%. I was surprised to see Mr. SEO quickly cite his top reason to how many first-level connections he had. He went on to share that he receives 15-20 connection requests from strangers per day. His subsequent reasons then pointed to Keywords and frequent Updates to his LinkedIn status.

One of his readers commented on his post that they too made the top 1%, but have less than 10% of the connections he has, and spends little to no time at all on their LinkedIn profile. He responded by saying, “I believe if you had more connections you would definitely do even better.” Hmm?!

So what gives? How do two people with completely opposite profiles and far different behaviors in their dedication to their LinkedIn profiles end up with the same result of a top viewed profile?

Turns out that keywords are pretty important, after all. Even more so than number of connections, Mr. SEO.

So, if you are looking to increase solicitations from prospectors, make sure to research trending keywords that relate to you and include them in your profile. Do this, and YOU TOO can join the ranks of 10 million other members to balance the load of solicitations you are sure to receive.