Back it Up – Own Your LinkedIn Information
Contact information for all of your connections
You’ve taken great care in building your LinkedIn network of connections because these are the folks you’ve known throughout your career, those friends from school with whom you’ve recently reconnected and professionals who are just plain helpful and wise because they might be excellent resources in the future.?Are you comfortable with all of that information residing on a website over which you have no control? What if you need to access contact information for one of your connections and the LinkedIn site is down temporarily? For many reasons, I strongly sugggest periodically exporting and saving your connections. How frequently you should do this depends on how often you add new people to your network.
Exporting your connections is easy. Let me walk you through this very simple process.
- Sign into your LinkedIn account
- From the menu on the top, left of the page, click on “Contacts”
- This will take you to a list of your Connections (see image).
- At the bottom of this list is a link to “Export Connections” (indicated by the red arrow).
- Click here and select the file type in which you’d like to save this information.
- Create the file and save it to your own computer. (Note: I have experienced occasional problems opening this file and then saving it, so I suggest saving it immediately.)
- From here, you may choose to upload your contacts’ information into another program such as Outlook, gmail contacts, yahoo mail or another CRM database.
Profile and recommendations
While you are in a housekeeping mood, let’s take it one step further. Trust me, this step is even easier, but equally important. The same care and time you’ve applied to building your network on LinkedIn?as been spent on painstakingly crafting?your profile, inclucing just the right blend of bullet point accomplishments and skills, with information about why you do what you do and what makes you unique. This is information you’ll want to save and be able to access at all times. If you others have recommended your work, this step becomes even more critical as you certainly want to retain a record of their complimentary endorsement. (Click here for more information about LinkedIn recommendations.)
To save a .pdf copy of your profile, visit your profile page and look for the .pdf icon, as indicated above by the red arrow. Clicking on the icon will create a nice page including your profile information, along with a clean copy of your recommendations.? Save this document to your computer and, voila, you can sleep well knowing you’ve got a copy of all of your hard work.
One additional tip for those seeking new employment, consulting or sales opportunities: The ability the print and share recommendations?when meeting?with a potential employer or client may prove useful as LinkedIn recommendations typically carry a great degree of credibility due to the ease with which one can learn more about?its author.
So, what are you waiting for? Head on over to LinkedIn, save your information and mark your calendar?to remind yourself?to do it on a regular basis.??This will take only about five minutes total; time well spent in managing your critical online information.
But, before you go, let me know your thoughts, won’t you? Was this tip helpful to you? What other questions do you have about LinkedIn or other social networking sites which you’d like me to address? The better I understand your networking interests and goals, the better I’ll be able to provide valuable help.
More tips to maximize your use of LinkedIn can be found here.
For one-on-one coaching to immediately turbo-charge your online presence, see the information here and here to contact me directly.
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17 Responses to “Back it Up – Own Your LinkedIn Information”
Leave a Reply
Nice piece of advice.
Linkedin addict.
Simon Hamer
Hi Irene,
Thanks for sending out the information on how to ?back-up? Connections and Recommendations on LinkedIn.
It is always a pleasure to open your e-mails!
And I have already taken action by backing-up my data
Matthew Stack
http://www.linkedin.com/in/MatthewStack
@Simon – Glad it was helpful.
@Matthew – What a wonderful compliment about my blog. I appreciate it very much and glad you’re enjoying your email subscription. Thanks for joining me for the ride!
Irene,
Good info as usual. And the tip about making it a regularly scheduled task is great. Thanks!
http://www.linkedin.com/in/napoleonbatalao
Thanks, Irene. This is really sound advice. I just did an export of my contacts and my profile. I’m so glad I follow you on Twitter!
I love the how-to posts! My LinkedIn isn’t big enough to worry about right now (YET), but this is great info.
Irene,
Great idea, Just did it. Thanks!!!
Thanks Irene,
I just backed ‘em up!
Stu
Thanks for the reminder, Irene. Just like the hard-drive on my computer, I don’t back my contacts up as frequently as I should!
I did not know I could do this. What a great tip. It is on my action item list … TODAY!
Thank you for the reminder. I had not done this for a couple months. I made it an Outlook Calendar item to do the back-up each month.
As lways, thanks for the great tips! Kepp them coming!
Walt
Thanks, Irene! Wise advice, and easy for anyone to do.
Thanks, Irene…Just went to do it, and now know why I haven’t done it before. It only gives options that I don’t use (Outlook, Yahoo, Mac, etc.). I tried .vcf, but am not sure I’ll ever be able to open or use it.
Thanks, anyway!
)
Many blessings,
Nancy
AffirmingSpirit´s last blog ..Crafting Your JOY List
I export to .csv and then import into gmail. What are you using for your contacts? This works with most programs.
Hi Irene,
Thank you so much for the information. I backed up my contacts, imported them into my Mac address book, put them into a separate list and also saved a .pdf file of my profile page.
I appreciate your advice and assistance. Backing up is always a great idea!!!
Thanks again, Andrea
Andrea?s last blog ..Social Media – A Tool in Your Marketing/Business Plan
Excellent, Andrea! Good to know you’ve got direct access to the information should you ever need it.
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