Are you like me where you wish you had a way to do something within LinkedIn, but you’re unsure how to do that so you could become a better networker.

Or may you remember hearing a tip on a Microsoft SureStep Marketing call or from someone else in the partner channel but you not sure where to look?

The great thing about LinkedIn it has tons of fantastic features and functions that you can personalize to meet your needs and drive more B2B marketing leads.

Let’s start with highlighting the wide-ranging security and personalization settings via the LinkedIn Settings & Privacy page before we head down the path of the five tips and tricks that we help you be a better LinkedIn networker below:

Managing and canceling LinkedIn connection requests

I know it can be hard to remember who have you already sent LinkedIn connection requests to at times.

There is an easy fix for this, and that is by visiting the Sent Invitations page.

1. Click the My Network icon at the top of your LinkedIn homepage.

• You can filter, accept, or ignore any pending invitations displayed at the top of the page.

2. Click Manage all near the top of the page.

3. Click the Sent tab under Manage invitations. Only sent invitations that are still waiting for a response will be displayed.

4. Select one of the following withdraw options:

• Click Withdraw to the right of each member's invitations you want to cancel for single invitations.

• Check the Select box to select all and click Withdraw [number] for multiple invitations. You can also select multiple invitations one by one by checking the Select box to the left of each invitation.

• Check the Contacts imported from your address book box and click Withdraw all for invited imported contacts that happened by mistake.

• Note: Once you have withdrawn the invitation, you will not be able to send them another invite for up to three weeks.

Control who can send you a LinkedIn connection request

You might be wondering why a recent invitation request isn’t getting through to you that’s probably to do with your Who can send you invitations settings.

To manage who can send you invitations to connect on LinkedIn:

1. Click the Me icon at the top of your LinkedIn homepage.

2. Click Settings & Privacy.

3. Select the Communications tab at the top of the page.

4. Under the Preferences section, click Change next to Who can send you invitations.

• Everyone on LinkedIn (recommended)

• Only people who know your email address or appear in your “Imported Contact” list

• Only people who appear in your “Imported Contacts” list

I always recommend the Everyone on LinkedIn to all the people I talk to as you can still decide who you connect to or not by reviewing the invitation.

By choosing the last two, I believe you are losing the opportunity for a prospect to reach out to you who don’t have your email or instead on your imported contact list.

How to remove a LinkedIn Member

As we do in our CRM system from time to time, we clean up our records and remove people as they are now long at companies or they are no longer beneficial to our network or for some reason the same rings real for LinkedIn. Other reasons could be they are over spamming you, or their account seems fake as that indeed happens from time to time within LinkedIn.

To remove a connection from a connection's profile:

1. Navigate to the connection's profile.

2. Click the More... button in the introduction card.

3. Select Remove connection.

Note: The connection that you just removed will not be notified that you removed them and only you can reinstate the connect.

How to block a LinkedIn Member

There are undoubtedly times, and we won’t get into the reasons why because we are all big boys and girls who can certainly make the decision when we should make the right decision that we need to block some on LinkedIn.

To block a member from viewing your profile:

1. Navigate to the profile of the person you'd like to block.

2. Click the More… button below the member’s profile picture and select Report/Block from the list.

3. Select Block [member name] from the What do you want to do? Pop-Up menu.

4. Click Block to proceed or Go back to review your options.

If you ever need to unblock a member as the situation has changed then click here.

Note: You are the only one that can “unblock” the member and in many of the cases also the member who is being blocked with not be notified.

How to Improve my LinkedIn Feed

If you haven’t spent time doing this, I would highly recommend that you spend time setting your preferences so that you improve your LinkedIn feed. You can customize your feed by selecting what content you want to receive, listen to companies by following them, follow and listen to people instead of connecting to them and you also add hashtags for topics you’re interested in. All these can either be selected via your desktop or via the LinkedIn mobile app and will automatically transfer between both.

To manage your feed preferences:

1. Click the More icon on the top right corner of any post.

2. Click Improve my feed.

3. Click the Follow fresh perspectives tab, the Following tab, or the Followers tab near the top of the page to update your feed preferences:

• Follow fresh perspectives - This is a list of recommended sources to follow. Click Follow under a person, company, or hashtag to add content to your feed from that source.

• Following - This is a list of people, companies, or hashtags you currently follow. Click Following below the person or company to stop seeing content in your feed from that source. The displayed will change back to Follow.

• Followers - This is a list of people who currently follow you.

4. Click Done in the top right corner of the page to return to your feed.

Of course, there are many more features and functions within that you can configure with LinkedIn, but I hope you enjoy these.

Do you have a feature/function that has made you a better networker?