Characters Count: Customize Linkedin Status Update Links

Attention is in short supply on the Internet. Make all the characters you use count.

Customize Links in the Your Status Updates

When you include a link in a Status Update, Linkedin lets you add or change text in any or all of these three fields:

1. The Status Update Box
2. The Link Headline
3. The Link Description

Here’s a copy of a Linkedin Status Update I posted earlier today:

And here’s a copy of the same link that went out on Facebook.

Notice the “link description” in the Facebook one.  It’s all about the author’s background and it trails with an incomplete thought. Not optimized at all for my message. It’s the link description provided by the author of the post. (The same description that would show in a Google Search.)

The problem? Facebook doesn’t let you customize link descriptions so I had to put much more information in my original comment field. Worse, some of my network might waste their time reading that description. What they really needed to know was in the Link Title: The blog was advice offered by Google’s Chief Blogger. Someone with experience and authority, right?

How to Change Link Titles and Descriptions

To Edit the Headline and Link Description, just insert the link URL in the Link box. Then, when the information about the link pops up, look for the word “Edit” and click on it. Then move your cursor to the words you want to edit and click. The words will be replaced by a content field you can edit.

For today’s post I added a comment but I also changed the link description to better suit the message that I was trying to convey to my network.

Link Pictures Matter, too: Pick when you can.

Images matter. They can attract attention. They can also extend the message.

You can see that the Facebook link included a picture. (And it even let me sift through the choices and chose one.) Linkedin usually does that, too. With this link, Linkedin didn’t read of the available pictures. If you see a picture come up on your Linkedin Status Update link, click through any arrows below it to pick the picture you’d like to use for the link.

Bottom line: Characters matter. So do visuals. Use all the features available to make it easier for your network to find and understand your message with minimal word count. If you’re sending a message to your network, take the time to make sure that you’re getting your point across. Edit where you can. If you can’t — like in the Facebook post — take a few more words to better explain your message in the comment field.