How do I see recent birthdays on LinkedIn?

LinkedIn is a great platform for connecting with professional contacts and staying up-to-date on their career developments. One useful feature of LinkedIn is the ability to see which of your connections have recently had a birthday. Here are some tips on how to view recent birthdays on LinkedIn.

Enable Birthday Notifications

The first step to seeing recent birthdays is to make sure you have birthday notifications enabled. To do this:

1. Go to your LinkedIn homepage and click on your profile icon in the top right corner
2. From the dropdown menu, select “Settings & Privacy”
3. On the left side of the page, click “Communications”
4. Under “Birthdays,” make sure the option to “Receive notifications about birthdays of your LinkedIn network” is turned on

Once you’ve enabled birthday notifications, LinkedIn will start sending you email digests highlighting upcoming birthdays among your 1st degree connections. This makes it easy to stay on top of birthdays without having to regularly check LinkedIn.

View the Birthdays Module

Another way to see recent and upcoming birthdays is directly on LinkedIn through the Birthdays module. Here’s how to access it:

1. Go to your LinkedIn homepage and log in if needed
2. Scroll down until you see the “Birthdays” module on the right side – it may be collapsed so you’ll need to click to expand it
3. Here you will see upcoming birthdays for your 1st degree connections for the next month
4. Click “See all” to view even more upcoming birthdays

The Birthdays module is a great way to quickly glance at the birthdays happening soon among your network. You can then easily reach out to wish them a happy birthday straight from LinkedIn.

Leverage LinkedIn Search

You can also proactively search for recent and upcoming birthdays using LinkedIn’s advanced search capabilities. Here are some tips for birthday searches:

• Try searching “birthdays this month” or “birthdays next month” to surface connections with birthdays in a specific timeframe
• You can combine this with other filters like location, company, school, etc. to narrow down birthdays
• When you find someone with an upcoming birthday, click on their profile to verify their birthday date listed is accurate
• Consider adding their birthday date to your calendar or CRM to get reminders for future years

Conducting focused birthday searches allows you to surface birthdays that may not show up in your notifications or news feed organically. Just remember to double check the birthday date for accuracy.

Check Relationship Updates

Relationship updates on LinkedIn often include birthday mentions for your connections. You can check these updates to find recent birthdays:

1. Go to your LinkedIn feed by clicking “Home” at the top
2. Look for posts from your connections that mention birthdays in the text or captions
3. The birthday person may be tagged in the update
4. You can like or comment on the post to engage with the birthday mention
5. Click on the profile of the birthday person to view and verify their birthday date

Relationship updates are a more passive way to discover birthdays, but can help you catch any you may have missed otherwise.

Use LinkedIn’s “Who’s Viewed Your Profile”

A sneaky way to find recent birthdays is looking at who has viewed your LinkedIn profile. Often times, connections will look at your profile around their birthday to see if you noticed. Here’s how to leverage this:

1. Go to your LinkedIn profile and scroll down to the “Who’s Viewed Your Profile” module
2. This will show the last 90 days of profile views by default
3. Scan the list of names for any connections who have birthdays around the time they viewed your profile
4. Cross-reference with the birthday date on their LinkedIn profile to confirm accuracy

By spotting the profile views around someone’s birthday, you can deduce they likely had a recent birthday. Just make sure to confirm by looking at their profile.

Use LinkedIn Ad Targeting

If you want to get really strategic, you can create LinkedIn ads targeted to users with recent birthdays. Here’s how:

1. Navigate to the LinkedIn ads platform and create a new campaign
2. Under “Audience targeting” select “Demographics”
3. Target your ad to users with birthdays “in the past month” or another custom range
4. Analyze the audience size and engagement with your ad
5. Anyone who engages with the ad likely had a recent birthday!

Running targeted birthday ads allows you to proactively uncover birthdays at scale, though this approach does require advertising budget and savvy.

Check Your Contacts App

If you connect your LinkedIn account to your contacts app or calendar, you can view LinkedIn birthdays directly there. Here’s how to connect them:

1. Open your phone’s Contacts app and find the settings menu
2. Look for an option to connect or sync accounts and select LinkedIn
3. Log in to your LinkedIn account through the prompt
4. After syncing, open the birthdays calendar to see upcoming birthdays!

Syncing LinkedIn with your contacts app creates a centralized place to view birthdays from both sources. Super handy!

Use the LinkedIn Mobile App

The LinkedIn mobile app makes it easy to see recent and upcoming birthdays in just a couple taps. Here’s how to find them:

1. Open the LinkedIn app on your iPhone or Android device
2. Tap on “My Network” at the bottom
3. On the top right, tap on “Birthdays”
4. Here you’ll see recent and upcoming birthdays chronologically

The mobile app provides a streamlined view for browsing birthdays. Great for on-the-go accessing!

Conclusion

Spotting birthdays on LinkedIn doesn’t have to be a challenge. With email notifications, homepage modules, search functions, feeds, ads, and the mobile app, there are plenty of ways to stay on top of your connections’ special days. The key is finding the approach that fits seamlessly into your LinkedIn activity and personal workflow. With so many options, you can easily build a birthday awareness routine that feels natural and sustainable.

Remembering birthdays demonstrates thoughtfulness and care for your relationships. When leveraged skillfully, a simple LinkedIn birthday wish can become a touchpoint that strengthens bonds with connections old and new. So be proactive and integrate these tips into your networking strategy. Your effort will be noticed and appreciated!