Can I sort my LinkedIn connections by location?

Having a large network of connections on LinkedIn can be invaluable for your career and business. But with hundreds or even thousands of connections, it can be challenging to manage your network effectively. One way to better organize your LinkedIn connections is by sorting them according to location.

Why sort LinkedIn connections by location?

There are a few key reasons why sorting your LinkedIn connections by their location can be useful:

• Identify connections in your city or region – You can easily see who in your network is based locally, which can help with networking events, client meetings, job searches, and more.
• Segment your network by country – Sorting by location makes it easy to identify your connections within a certain country, which is great if you’re targeting a specific international market.
• Connect with travelers – If you connect with people in different cities before they travel there, you can potentially meet up with them and expand your network while they’re in town.
• Focus communications – You can target updates, messages, or other communications to connections based on their location.
• Discover visitor insights – Seeing where your profile visitors are from can provide insights into which markets or regions have the most interest in you.

Having your LinkedIn network organized by location allows you to more easily leverage your connections based on where they’re located. It helps turn your network into a useful, searchable database.

How to sort LinkedIn connections by location

LinkedIn makes it simple to sort your connections by their location. Here are the steps:

1. Go to your LinkedIn Connections page. This can be found in the “My Network” section of your homepage.
2. Click on the “All connections” drop-down menu at the top of your list of connections.
3. Select “Location” from the drop-down menu options.

Your connections will now be sorted alphabetically by their location. The locations listed are based on the primary location added to each connection’s profile. You can repeat the steps above to also sort connections by industry, current company, when you connected with them, and more.

Filtering your sorted LinkedIn connections

After sorting your LinkedIn connections by location, you can further filter your list by selecting a specific location:

1. Follow the steps above to sort connections by location.
2. Click on the location dropdown filter above your list of connections.
3. Select a specific location, such as a city, region, or country.

This will filter your connections so only those in the selected location appear. For example, you could view just your connections located in London, England.

Location tagging your LinkedIn connections

In addition to sorting your connections by the location on their profile, you can also manually tag connections to organize them by location. Here’s how:

1. Go to your Connections page and select a connection.
2. Click “More” and select “Tag connection.”
3. In the text field, enter a location tag such as “London”, “Bay Area”, or “Canada”.
4. Click “Save” to apply the tag.

You can add multiple location tags to the same connection. After tagging connections, use the tags dropdown filter to view connections with a certain tag applied.

Exporting your LinkedIn connections data

Looking to do further analysis and sorting of your LinkedIn connections based on location? You can export your connections data:

1. Go to your LinkedIn Connections page.
2. Click on the “Manage synced and imported contacts” option (on desktop) or “Export LinkedIn connections” option (on mobile).
3. Select either “Export to CSV” to download as a spreadsheet, or “Export to another service” to sync with an external CRM or address book.

The exported data will include location information that you can then analyze and organize outside of LinkedIn. This provides expanded flexibility for sorting and filtering your connections by location.

Important considerations when sorting LinkedIn connections

When sorting your LinkedIn connections by location, keep the following considerations in mind:

• Not all connections enter a location in their profile, so they may be missing from your sorted list.
• Connections may have multiple locations in their profile, in which case LinkedIn will default to sorting by their primary location.
• Location sorting is based on each connection’s current profile data, which could be out of date if they have moved.
• Take care in exporting your connections data, as it contains private information that should only be used for your own purposes.

FAQs

Does sorting connections by location change the order for my connections?

Sorting by location only temporarily reorders your connections – it does not change the default connection ordering on your permanent Connections list. You can always re-sort back to see your connections in the default order.

Can I sort connections by their company location too?

Currently you can only directly sort LinkedIn connections by the location added to their personal profile. But you could export the data to also sort connections by their company’s location.

Does location sorting work on the mobile app too?

Yes, the option to sort connections by location is available on both the desktop LinkedIn website as well as the mobile app.

Can I sort connections by their city?

LinkedIn’s location sort allows you to filter by city after sorting by country. But since the main sort is by the broader country location, you cannot directly sort connections just by their city.

Is there a limit to how many location tags I can add to a connection?

There is no limit on the number of manual location tags that can be added to each LinkedIn connection.

Pro tips for sorting LinkedIn connections by location

Here are some expert tips for making the most of the location sorting functionality:

• Tag your most important connections with locations to ensure they appear when filtering.
• Add a broad tag like “International” to globally-based connections.
• Update your own location regularly so connections can find you.
• Proactively ask connections in key markets to add a local city/country to their profile.
• Work from broader to more specific – sort by country, then filter by region, then city.
• When traveling, tag local connections before arrival to set up meetings.

Conclusion

Location is a crucial organizing principle for your LinkedIn connections. Sorting and filtering connections by where they’re based provides valuable insight into your network while enabling targeted communications and outreach. So be sure to take full advantage of LinkedIn’s sorting capabilities to keep your connections organized and easily accessible based on geographic presence.