If you are based in Europe like me, chances are high that you communicate in more than one language. And so do your clients. So what do you do? Do you create two LinkedIn profiles? Or do you squeeze both languages into one profile? And how do you communicate with your network? Answers in this post
One LinkedIn Profile per user
According to LinkedIn’s user agreement you’re only allowed to have one LinkedIn account. So creating a second one in another language (or for another business) means that you’re breaking that agreement.
Instead create a translation of your LinkedIn Profile
You might remember that Google automagically recognizes your language and usually shows you a multi-lingual website in your preferred language. Well, LinkedIn works the same way. When a user who’s LinkedIn interface is in French looks at my profile he will be served the French version of my profile and an English user will see my English profile.
So how did I set this up? Easy, just follow the 3 steps below to create a LinkedIn Profile in another language:
- Go to ‘edit’ your profile and click on the little arrow next to the ‘view profile as’. Don’t click on that button though, on the arrow next to it.
- Click on ‘Create profile in another language
- Create the profile in an other language and fill in your new headline as well as translate all the fields in the next step (it’s not LinkedIn’s job to translate your profile, you need to do that yourself)
What about updates? Which language should I post in?
It gets a bit more complicated when it comes to communicating with your network. Naturally you will have contacts from both languages in your network and unfortunately there’s no way (yet) to target your updates via the personal profile to just one language group.
Here’s how I deal with it:
So each time I share something in French I add a [French Update] before the post. It’s not ideal, but it’s the best way I have found so far.
What about the Company Page?
The same logic applies to the LinkedIn Company page. You can create it in different languages and LinkedIn will serve it according to the user’s preferred language.
What about updates via the LinkedIn Company Page?
Usually the personal profile is way more feature rich than the company page. But not when it comes to language specific updates.
LinkedIn Company Page updates can be targeted to give you the ability to tailor content to specific audiences. Updates are targeted based on followers’ profile data. Targeted company update filters include company size, industry, function, seniority, geography, and language preference. You can also specifically reach non-employee followers with these same targeting parameters.
To create a targeted update from the post console simply select the company page you want to create the update with, click on the Target Audience icon and select the segment of audience you want to target.
- Targeted company updates only appear to their intended audiences in both the member’s homepage feed and on the Company or Showcase Page.
- A company must have at least 100 followers within the selected target group in order to post a targeted company update.
Et voilà! You’re all set !