LinkedIn is one of the most popular professional networking sites, with over 800 million members worldwide. As a LinkedIn user, you have access to a wealth of data about your professional profile, connections, activity on the platform, and much more. This data can provide valuable insights to help you advance your career, connect with the right people, and position yourself as an expert in your industry.
In this article, we’ll walk through the various types of data available from your LinkedIn account and how to access them. Whether you want to analyze your network, improve your profile, or extract data for professional purposes, read on to learn how to get the most out of your LinkedIn data.
Viewing your LinkedIn profile analytics
One of the easiest ways to get data about your LinkedIn presence is to view your LinkedIn profile analytics. This dashboard provides at-a-glance stats about who has viewed your profile, how your profile ranks against others in your industry, and how you compare with other LinkedIn members.
To access your profile analytics, follow these steps:
- Go to your LinkedIn profile
- Click on the “Me” icon at the top of your LinkedIn feed
- Select “View profile” from the dropdown menu
- Scroll down and click on “See how your profile ranks” under the Profile Stats section
This will bring up your Profile Analytics dashboard with the following key data:
- Profile views: Total number of times your profile has been viewed over the past 90 days
- Search appearances: How often you appeared in LinkedIn search results over the past 90 days
- Profile Strength: LinkedIn’s rating of your profile completeness on a scale of Beginner to All-Star
- Network Statistics: Summary stats of your connections, followers, and groups
Reviewing your Profile Analytics regularly can help you understand the reach and visibility of your LinkedIn presence. Check back from time to time to see how your efforts to optimize your profile and activity are paying off with increased profile views, search visibility, and profile strength.
Downloading your LinkedIn data
To get more detailed insights into your LinkedIn activity and presence, you can download your full LinkedIn data archive. This contains your profile info, network connections, interests, posts, search history, messages, and more. Here are the steps to download your data:
- Go to your LinkedIn Account settings
- Click on “Get a copy of your data”
- Choose the data types you want to download
- Enter your account password and click “Request archive”
- LinkedIn will email you a link when your download is ready (usually within 24-48 hours)
- Follow the link, re-enter your password, and download your LinkedIn data zip file
Once you’ve downloaded your LinkedIn data, you can extract insights like:
- Who has viewed your profile the most
- Which companies are viewing your profile
- The growth of your network over time
- Your most commonly used keywords and skills
- Your most liked and shared posts
- The groups and influencers you engage with most
Analyzing this data can reveal opportunities to improve your profile, expand your network, and increase engagement.
Exporting your LinkedIn connections
Your LinkedIn network is one of your most valuable assets on the platform. To leverage this, you can export a list of your LinkedIn connections to be used for networking, prospecting, and recruiting.
To export your connections, go to your LinkedIn Connections page and click on “Manage synced and imported contacts” under the Connections tab. This will bring up options to export your connections to a CSV file or integrate them with an email service provider or CRM.
The exported CSV file contains info like full name, company, location, position, and profile URL for each connection. You can open this file in Excel or other programs to sort, segment, and analyze your network for things like:
- Locations where you have the most connections
- The companies and industries you’re connected with
- Influencers and other power players in your network
- Connections who have recently changed jobs
By better understanding the makeup of your network, you can improve your contacts and identify new outreach opportunities.
Using the LinkedIn Recruiter tool
If you are in a recruiting or HR role, LinkedIn Recruiter provides powerful tools to search LinkedIn profiles and export prospect data. Recruiter allows advanced Boolean searches across LinkedIn’s network of over 800 million members.
Key features of LinkedIn Recruiter for mining prospect data include:
- Bulk export of prospect profiles as CSV files
- Save search criteria for easily accessing prospects
- Tag and annotate prospects
- Identify passive candidates open to new opportunities
- Evaluate candidates with profile metrics like skills, experience level, and responsiveness
LinkedIn Recruiter is a paid tool starting at around $8,000 annually for a team license. But for frequent recruiters, the time savings and wealth of LinkedIn data at your fingertips makes it a worthwhile investment.
Scraping LinkedIn data
If you need to collect more extensive data than LinkedIn’s tools provide, scraping LinkedIn data is an option. This involves using software programs to automatically extract information from LinkedIn profiles at scale.
Some key things that can be scraped from LinkedIn include:
- Company, title, and bio info from profiles
- Entire network connections
- Group members and discussions
- Company pages and employee lists
- Job postings
This data can be used for competitive intelligence, recruitment analytics, network mapping, and more extensive LinkedIn research projects.
However, it is important to carefully follow LinkedIn’s terms of service when scraping data. Generally you should:
- Limit the frequency of access to avoid overloading LinkedIn’s servers
- Don’t sell or redistribute scraped member profile information
- Prompt users to log in themselves to access private data, don’t store credentials
Scraping too aggressively can get your account restricted or banned. So proceed with care when programmatically extracting LinkedIn data.
Using LinkedIn API
For third-party developers, LinkedIn offers various APIs to give programmatic access to LinkedIn data and services. This includes APIs like:
- People API: Search member profiles and network connections
- Interests API: Get member interests and suggestions
- Groups API: Access LinkedIn Groups content
- Jobs API: Post and search job listings
- Ads API: Manage LinkedIn ad campaigns and accounts
For example, here is some sample data you can get with the People API:
| Field | Description |
|---|---|
| Profile URL | The URL to the member’s public profile |
| Profile Picture URL | Link to the member’s profile photo |
| First Name | Member’s first name |
| Last Name | Member’s last name |
| Company | Name of the member’s current company |
| Title | Member’s current job title |
This makes it possible to integrate detailed LinkedIn data into your own apps and services. However, you’ll need to apply for a LinkedIn developer account and API key before accessing most LinkedIn APIs.
Conclusion
LinkedIn provides a wealth of professional data if you know how to access it. By regularly reviewing your profile analytics, downloading your LinkedIn data, exporting your connections, using recruiter tools, scraping, or tapping into LinkedIn’s APIs, you can get data to boost your career, network, recruiting, or business goals.
Remember to use this data responsibly, following LinkedIn’s terms of service. With the right strategies, LinkedIn’s extensive platform offers data insights that can take your professional objectives to the next level.
