LinkedIn.com Privacy Update: Posts Are Now Public!
When sharing a post on LinkedIn.com, you can control who can see it by using the drop-down menu below the share box. [Figure 1] Previously, if you posted using the “public” setting on LinkedIn it was visible only to those users who were signed in to their LinkedIn account.
As of the third week of July 2017 posts shared as public on LinkedIn are visible to people who are signed into LinkedIn. In addition, they are now also visible to people who are not signed in as well as to people on other sites as well. Posting something to the public is beneficial as it will get your post in front of more people as they are no longer restricted to only logged-in LinkedIn users. It’s also a privacy concern, as you may not want the information you share going beyond this social channel.
LinkedIn.com is a business oriented social network that boasts over 500 million users come from more than 200 countries. The site was recently acquired by Microsoft. It’s a good site for a career change too as there are over 10 million LinkedIn job postings.
Before a post can be shared off-site, you may have to change your LinkedIn.com privacy settings. To see if your post can be shared publicly, on LinkedIn, go to:
- Privacy settings – Set to Everyone on LinkedIn. Note: If you’ve blocked another member on LinkedIn, they may be able to see your public posts off LinkedIn or in guest mode (not signed in) on LinkedIn
- Public profile visibility – Change to “Make my public profile visible to everyone” and checkmark Posts & Activities to make your posts visible to the public
The ability to change the visibility settings for sharing posts to public – making them visible on and off LinkedIn.com – is only available for posts created natively. This means to use this privacy feature you must be using LinkedIn.com, or post using the LinkedIn iOS and Android mobile app. Posts created with other third-party apps that use the public setting, like Buffer, still only post to those signed in to LinkedIn.
Recently I produced a YouTube video about important LinkedIn privacy settings and how to adjust them. If you are updating your profile on www.LinkedIn.com then watch the above video and check on these settings. One of the most important is whether you want other www.LinkedIn.com users to see your updates. This along with your location are important privacy settings if you are looking at posting for LinkedIn jobs.