As a small business owner, you rely on LinkedIn for networking opportunities. But you also value your privacy, especially when exploring new career options. The good news? You can optimize your LinkedIn profile for both discoverability and discretion.
Follow this comprehensive 2023 guide to making your LinkedIn private in just a few quick steps. Along the way, we’ll explore key privacysettings and tips tailored for solopreneurs like you.
Why Entrepreneurs Make LinkedIn Private
Before we dive in, let‘s discuss why small business owners prefer to keep their LinkedIn presence private:
- Separate business and personal connections: Keep work-related connections visible while limiting others.
- Hide career explorations: Privately evaluate new business ideas without signaling moves to current partners.
- Reduce recruiting spam: CEOs and founders get bombarded with unsolicited outreach.
- Protect personal information: Limit access to email, phone number, and address details.
For entrepreneurs, privacy = freedom to securely explore ideas and opportunities.
4 Keys to a Private LinkedIn Profile
LinkedIn has robust privacy options…if you know where to look! Follow these four key steps to get the most private profile possible:
1. Adjust Public Profile Settings
Start by limiting what‘s visible on your public profile, viewable to non-connections:
- Head to Settings & Privacy > Visibility
- Next to Edit your public profile, click Change
- Toggle elements to private like email, connections, interests, etc.
Reducing public exposure is base-level LinkedIn privacy.
2. Limit Feed and Activity Broadcasting
Now restrict activity feed sharing that broadcasts when you update your profile or make new connections:
- In Settings & Privacy > Visibility
- Under Activity Broadcast, click Change
- Toggle feed visibility off or limit to your own connections
This prevents publicizing career explorations.
3. Enable Anonymous Profile Viewing
When you look at other profiles, LinkedIn can share that activity by default. To browse anonymously:
- Go to Settings & Privacy > Visibility
- Under Profile viewing options, choose Private mode
You‘ll also give up seeing your profile views, but privacy trade-offs are necessary.
4. Prune Connections
Finally, comb through your connections and remove any outdated or private ones. Less connections = less visibility by association.
Regular pruning also reduces spam and unwanted solicitation based on how others share your private connections publicly in their own network.
Making LinkedIn Private as CEO: Key Takeaways
As an entrepreneur and founder, staying agile and exploratory in business means wanting privacy in your activities. The steps above offer personalized recommendations based on my own experiences balancing LinkedIn visibility with discretion.
In particular, always being aware of how connections expose your profile is critical knowledge. Top solopreneurs limit connections to current partners alone.
Hopefully you now have clarity on exactly how to make LinkedIn private in 2024 as a startup founder. What aspects of privacy on LinkedIn matter most to your business goals right now? Which settings above seem most relevant to focus on first?
Optimizing these profile adjustments this year can pay dividends in the strategic – and private – moves you‘re empowered to make next. Here‘s to your continued growth and leadership on your own terms.
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