Are you 100% Complete? Linkedin #IN Changed Profile Completeness

LinkedIn (Photo credit: Christopher S. Penn)

Many users are aware that LinkedIn frequently makes changes to features and capabilities without great fanfare.  LinkedIn made changes to their Profile Completeness score that also impacts your Linkedin search rankings on February 14, 2012.  Profile Completeness makes your personal brand stand out.

• The Profile Score will put more emphasis on your skills and expertise sections. This means you can showcase your areas of expertise to connect with people that have similar skills or with companies or organizations looking for subject matter experts.

• LinkedIn is also changing how they calculate profile completeness itself. The new calculation gives you more control over the score by emphasizing things you have more direct control over, like Skills, and putting less weight on areas you may have less control over, like Recommendations.

• The score also takes profile freshness into consideration, so frequent profile updates can help with profile completeness.

#EAv Empire Avenue - Scores LinkedIn

Image via CrunchBase

Did you know that Empire Avenue provides LinkedIn network scores? As of the date of this post, Klout and Peer Index do not have LinkedIn factored into their influence scores while Empire Avenue does have a network score for LinkedIn.  Klout states that they are working on it. (On June 14, 2011 after this post was written Klout implemented LinkedIn Scoring)


Empire Avenue states that Connections, Recommendations, and Activity are factored into the Linkedin Score.  Connections and Recommendations are easy metrics to derive once the LinkedIn account is hooked up in Empire Avenue.  Activity measurements can be a challenge given the nature of Linkedin.  Activity that shows up on a status update timeline are:  Status Updates, Discussions, Shares, Polls, Group Activity, Question and Answers.  There are also secondary activity measures such as likes and responses made to your questions and discussions.  I started looking at the LinkedIn Scores when I noticed that Stacy Zapar, the #1 connected woman on Linkedin had an EAv LinkedIn network score of 68 and she is one that engages.  At the time, I was scored a 32 and wondered what the highest EAv LinkedIn scores profiles looked like.  Empire Avenue provides the capability to evaluate scores across a variety of dimensions including networks.


Comparison Chart
The following shows the Empire Avenue LinkedIn network scores and LinkedIn metrics as of 6/2/2011.


                           EAv Score   Connections    Recommendations   Activity
Steve Cassady           34              1,200                  10                  1 Day
Stacy Zapar               68            30,000                   11                  1 Day          
Jason R. Martin          75            16,240                   30                 .1 Day
Viveka von Rosen       82            16,000                   61                  1 Day
Neal Schaffer              88            26,000*                 55                  1 Day
Lewis Howes              91            20,000*                147                 .25 Day
Laura Levitan              95           11,000*                 226                   None
Shally Steckerl          100           30,000                  173                 .33 Day


Data Methodology
Linkedin connection counts were provided to me by the users.  For those accounts* that I didn't have the actual connection count, I derived the connection counts from relative positioning of LION accounts that state connections counts in geographic searches sorted in connection order.  Recommendations are listed in the Summary section of the profile.  I used LinkedIn signal to determine LinkedIn network activity over a two week period to be consistent with Empire Avenues two week activity averaging methodology.  I removed Twitter based status updates from the LinkedIn activity since the scoring systems should be removing those duplicitous activity measures.


Observations
Bottom Line, is that it appears that the highest Linkedin scores are those users that have recommendation accounts in the mid 100's and above. The highest is Shally Steckerl who is connection count capped out with 173 recommendations. The second highest score is Laura Levitan with over 220 recommendations, but with "only" approximately 11,000 connections. Neither of the two are "active" linkedin users during the past two weeks (being consistent with Empire Avenue's measurement period) as measured by Linkedin Status, Sharing, and Group activity found through LinkedIn Signal. Although their usage may be more like Stacy's for recruiting searches, those activities aren't as "measureable"

It looks like that every 5 recommendations gets you "1" change in the LinkedIn network score.  From a broadness of LinkedIn network scoring, I think Stacy Zapar's engagement with her 30,000 base should carry more weight than Laura Levitan's smaller base and less activity even with higher recommendations.

I have a better appreciation of why it may be taking Klout so long to roll out their LinkedIn logic especially with the challenges of LinkedIn's API and variety of ways to use it.  How do you factor in poll activity and responses, responses to questions, likes of your shares, comments on discussions you initiated, etc. 


My current thinking is that there should be a minimum level of recommendations for a decent LinkedIn network score as a sign of connection validation, but there should be some level where recommendations have diminishing returns.  Especially in the past there have been "Top Recommended Contests" on Linkedin and the range of recommendations from being "substantial involvement" to more "thanks for answering my questions, you must be smart".  I wouldn't go out to get recommendations just to raise my #EAv stock price since that could dilute the personal branding and the quality of your profile on LinkedIn.  You should focus on real authentic recommendations on LInkedIn that have real meaning to clients or prospective employers.


As @Dups, cofounder of #EAv states "We do say we talk about Network Value, and in fact at Empire Avenue, the scores are the algorithmic measurable layer that any API gives us which is fraught with human assumptions, algorithmic issues and technical nightmares, but they do add value, they do give an idea of what's happening in a network."


What do you think about the weight of recommendations in LinkedIn network Empire Avenue scoring?

Related articles

• Empire Avenue, social capital and the value for brands (freshnetworks.com)
• @Klout vs @PeerIndex vs @EmpireAve- which has the real influence? [Georgina Lester] (ecademy.com)
• Klout Adds Context to Automated Influence? (prbreakfastclub.com)
• The Gamification of Social Media | THE SOCIAL CMO Blog (thesocialcmo.com)
• Empire Avenue Game, Fad, or Something Else (stevecassady.blogspot.com)

LinkedIn Links to Help You

Image via Wikipedia

I have found LinkedIn to be a very good tool for networking, sharing information, and business prospecting. Many people who I have interacted with have not leveraged the tool.  I have included links in this post that will take to a variety of helpful sites and articles in using LinkedIn.  There are also a variety of free webinars and twitter chat sessions to help you with your use of LinkedIn.  I thought I would highlight the ones I have used to help further my LInkedIn experience.

• Linked Into Business has a lot of great helpful hints by Viveka Von Rosen whose Twitter handles is @ LinkedInExpert.  There is also a weekly Tuesday evening LinkedIn chat session #linkedinchat Tuesday nights at 8 PM EST on Twitter where tips are shared and questions are answered.  I recommend you use Tweetchat to participate.
• Nathan Kievman of Deming Hill has Blog where he shares good LinkedIn information and operates the largest LinkedIn Strategies Group.

• Sean Nelson provides a lot of good LinkedIn information in his blog.  His blog also covers general Social Media Topics as well as provide Twitter information.

• Phil Rosenburg is a great Career Coach and his blog has a lot of great LinkedIn Hints in addition to job search information.  Phil also sponsors the below mentioned Greig Wells webinar.

• Greig Wells generally has a Free Thursday webinar on LinkedIn Hints.  This is actually a free webinar that truly provides real actionable information.

• The LinkedIn Blog is a good resource to keep track of newly deployed capabilities and technologies on LinkedIn.  LinkedIn tends to not broadly communicate changes they are making to their user base and this is one source of information I have found helpful.

Of course, I will be glad to help any of my readers and friends with their LinkedIn activities.

Related articles

• How to Find New Clients via LinkedIn (xemion.com)
• Your Leads Are On LinkedIn, Are You? (onesocialmedia.com)
• 4 Unique Ways to Get Traffic to Your Blog from LinkedIn Answers (hubspot.com)
• So, I'm on LinkedIn. Now what? (theglobeandmail.com)
• Webinar: Top 5 Tips For Putting LinkedIn To Work (smallbusinessmavericks.com)
• Getting the Most out of Your LinkedIn Profile (compukol.com)
• 10 Tips for Integrating Social Media and LinkedIn in to Your Job Search in 2011 (customerthink.com)
• Getting the Most out of Your LinkedIn Profile (compukol.com)