Being part of OpenLink and Personal Plus

Well, I finally took the plunge and signed up for Personal Plus on LinkedIn. 60 USD is about 3000 INR.

My immediate thought was to check/search how many other logo designers had signed up for the same. There were none except me – I found two other profiles but they were experts in other design areas. So does that mean that if someone searches for a “logo designer” on the OpenLink network on LinkedIn, they will see my profile first? If so, Yay!

I also subsequently took off my e-mail id from my profile [ main reason being that most of the connection invitations I get are from the various LinkedIn forums that I am part of – on my Gmail id and not on the one I had listed on my LinkedIn profile ].

The “One-Click Reference” feature has also been made available to me as a Personal Plus account holder. [ When you are on a person’s profile, someone who isn’t on your network, One-click reference allows you to see who all have worked/are currently working with that person and then that can help you carry out a reference-check if you so desire ]. This is an awesome feature on LinkedIn but I’m not sure how useful it will be for me personally/professionally – I believe recruiters will use it more rather than logo designers like myself who are looking for clients. Although I recently did do a check on one of my potential clients!

Two little icons are visible next to my name on my profile and on searches to visually show that I am a premium member and that I am also a member of the OpenLink network. and The second icon is not visible to you if you’re not on the OpenLink network.

Also, on my “dashboard” – the main page when you log into LinkedIn – has a small box on the bottom right with three more options that were not available on the free account. I still do not know the utility of two of the three:

Also, earlier, when someone who was not in my network searched for “logo designer” they only saw a summary of my profile and I had to use the LinkedIn power tip to give them my name and more profile details. Now, since I am on OpenLink, they can see my complete profile along with name and can “Contact Directly”.

I also noticed one more thing – if you are a premium member [ not sure which premium account ] but not on OpenLink, then your name/detailed profile are not visible to someone who is not on your network.

Like I’d thought, honestly, I don’t see much utility for marketing my services – it just allows others to “see” me – which is cool but if they don’t specifically look for me or the services that aside provides, they will never know of me!

So I basically paid for having my name listed in a “database” in the hope that “someday, someone looking for services that I provide, searches for the same on LinkedIn and finds me“.

It’s a good database for sure, but I’m not quite sure how I can use this service from LinkedIn – will keep you in the loop if I have a light-bulb moment!

UPDATE

I completely forgot to mention that the number of introductions available to a free account holder is five. With a Personal Plus account, the number of introductions goes upto ten. And I’ve utilized all the ten within one day! [ hopefully, I will receive positive replies too! ]