5 LinkedIn Features You Might Have Missed

LinkedIn is the social network for professionals, a place to have an online resume, connect with people from your industry or potential employers, and read relevant news. Most people only use LinkedIn's main features, but the social media platform also has very useful ones, sometimes hidden or not as much promoted to its users, who are therefore missing on very useful functionalities.

Here are 5 LinkedIn features you might have missed:

1. Profile's portfolio. A few months back, LinkedIn launched the "portfolios" that can be added to the summary, experience or education sections of the profiles. This feature is especially useful if you are an artist or are working with visuals (graphic designer, illustrator, filmmaker, architect, photographer...). You can simply add a direct link to a website/blog/video, or upload a file. It will be displayed directly on your profile. Go to "Edit your profile" and follow the prompts.

2. LinkedIn Pulse

LinkedIn Pulse is the news page of LinkedIn where you can see articles by members in a wide range of topics. You can select the topics you are the most interested in (that you will see in "Your News"), seethe ones by top influencers and thought leaders ("Top Posts"), and also browse all influencers and channels available ("Discover"). It's a great place to read interesting articles by your peers and people from your industry, and identify and connect with influential professionals.

3. LinkedIn Education

This is the newest feature of LinkedIn that allows you to "follow" Universities and Colleges' pages, the same way you follow Company Pages. You can identify other alumni from your school programs or follow the news from your current university. It will also be a great tool for employers to identify graduates and potential future employees.

4. Contacts database

LinkedIn recently offered the possibility to sync your contacts list info with other platforms like Gmail. If you choose to do so, on your contacts page you will see the contacts you have recently interacted with, either through LinkedIn or the other platform(s) merged. You will also see those information on each contact's profile. From your "Connections" page, click on the wheel" icon at the top right to choose which email platforms you want to sync with LinkedIn.

5. Tagging contacts

You can give each of your contacts some "tags" or keywords in order to categorize them and find them more easily. For example, you can tag your co-workers, former classmates, organize people by industry, etc. When you are on your contacts page, hover over anyone's name and click on "Tag" to add a keyword.

Another feature that can be useful to make new contacts is the "Who viewed your profile" option, but it is only fully accessible through LinkedIn Premium.

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