Last week, I was thrilled to find an article titled 26 Tips to Enhance Your Experience on LinkedIn and found on the Social Media Examiner. However, what a big disappointment when I discovered that those 26 tips were merely a LinkdeIn howto for unexperienced LinkedIn users. In other words, the post title implies that the content is “tips” where it actually is a list of LinkedIn features.
However, I was really surprised that, in this extensive list of features, the private RSS feed was not mentioned. What is the private RSS feed? The private RSS feed concentrates your LinkedIn network updates in one secret feed that you can read within your favorite RSS reader. Examples of its content:<
- “X is now connected to Y”
- Twitter updates shared through LinkedIn.
- “X shared a link”
- “X is now (position) at (company)”
- “X recommends Y”
* “X has joined (company)”
Now this ain’t some low-expectations SEO trick like the ones you can find in the post about LinkedIn I mentioned in the intro. The private RSS feed provides unquestionable business intelligence on the people you know, almost like a spy in the house of your LinkedIn rolodex. This feature is crucial to stay up-to-date on who works where, but also on who meets who, because new connections sometimes imply new businesses or partnerships. When you know your spiel, the LinkedIn private RSS feed is the top-notch Social Media marketing, business intelligence tool for the übergeek.
To find the private RSS feed, go to your LinkedIn account -> Settings -> RSS Settings -> click “Your Private RSS Feeds”. Activate and grab the RSS feed. Make sure not to share it with anyone. Even if you accidentally do, you can generate a new feed address on the same page you grabbed the feed in the first place.