LinkedIn is a great communications channel, but it is a two-way street. You might be talking, but is the other person listening? Are there ways you can determine if someone is active on LinkedIn? Can you tell if your messages are getting through? The answer is yes.

LinkedIn Background; How Many Members And Who Is Active?
There is data out there. According to the article “107 Important LinkedIn Statistics for 2023,” LinkedIn has about 900 million members and 310 million are monthly active users. The U.S. has 199 million users and accounts for 36.16% of LinkedIn’s worldwide traffic. The next closest country is India with 6.97%. This means a vast amount of the action happens here in the U.S. 5.7% of U.S. members are heavy users, defined as using Linkedin two-thirds of the month.

However, as of March 2021, 51.5% of U.S. LinkedIn Android users were inactive. To me, it’s unclear if this statistic carries over to desktop users and Apple iPhone users.

How Can You Tell If Someone Is Active?
The basic version of LinkedIn is free. If about a third of members worldwide are monthly active users and 51.5% of U.S. LinkedIn Android users are inactive, it appears “the lights are on but no one is at home” in many cases. Let’s look at 10 ways you can tell if someone is active on LinkedIn by looking at the profile of your connection.

1. There is no photo.  The statistics say if you have a profile picture, you are 7x more likely to be found. There is literally no cost to uploading a profile picture. If they haven’t, that is a good clue.

2. They have few connections. The magic threshold is 500 connections. If your number is under 500, LinkedIn shows exactly how many you have. If it is over 500 connections, it shows up as 500+. If they have few connections, they are either very picky or they aren’t paying much attention.

3. They have not posted lately. Under “Activity,” you can see if they have comments on posts or added their own posts. You can see the date of their last activity. If they haven’t been active, it probably reads “No activity in six months.” That’s another clue.

4. They have not updated their job history. People change jobs. People get laid off. If you know they changed jobs a year ago and their profile still indicates they work at their previous employer, that’s another clue. You can make the case why a new job might not be added during your probationary period, but not why you would hold onto data that is seriously out of date.

5. They have few shared connections. Let us assume you know them as a fellow graduate from your college. Maybe you worked together at the same company. You should know plenty of the same people. If you have few shared connections, this implies they are not working at building their network.

6. The little green circle. If their profile picture has a little green circle in the lower right-hand corner, it means they are active on LinkedIn right now. When you send a message, they know it.

7. The green circle with the white dot. This means they aren’t active on LinkedIn at the moment, but your message will come through on their mobile device. This might answer your question why your phone pings at odd times.

8. They don’t respond to messages. You send a message and hear nothing back. This implies they aren’t paying attention.

9. They don’t respond to notifications. These are messages you send prompted by the birthday, work anniversary or job change notifications. The text is often prepopulated for the sender. The response is prepopulated too. These greetings aren’t salesy and pretty inoffensive. If they don’t respond to the birthday greeting you sent, they are probably inactive.

10. Check your own Social Selling Index (SSI). This is one of the Sales Navigator tools on LinkedIn. It is free to access. I enter LinkedIn SSI Index into Google and get a link. Your LinkedIn activity is measured across four metrics. You can see how you measure up among people in your network and your industry. 

Why Would They Not Be Active?
There are lots of reasons. The most obvious is LinkedIn is not their preferred communication channel. So why did they bother to set up a profile they obviously are ignoring?

My personal theory is their firm said, “Simon says, everyone should get onto LinkedIn.” They were brought into a special meeting where an instructor taught them the basics of LinkedIn. Everyone was asked to use their phone to download the app and setup a rudimentary profile. Another possibility is they were asked to participate in a video conference and told to setup a profile on their desktop. Their sales manager walked around and checked everyone’s work. That might be why they have only two connections.

How Can You Tell If Someone Is Listening To You
You send messages. You do not get a message back. You wonder if someone is listening. Here are some clues.

1. The last message you send them has a check in a circle. This is found in the lower right-hand corner of the last message you sent them. It means your message has been delivered, but not read yet.

2. The last message you sent has their profile photo in a circle. It’s a really tiny photo. This means they have seen and read it.

3. Thumbs up. They have replied with a thumbs up image. As an FYI, if you put your cursor over a received message, you get a few images to choose from, like thumbs up or thumbs down. They saw it and responded.

4. Prepopulated response. When you receive a message, LinkedIn provides some easy responses like “Thanks.” If you get one, at least they made an effort.

5. Text message. They actually typed out a message in their own words. The best response of all.

If the person you want to reach is not responsive on LinkedIn, this is not all bad news. They may simply have another preferred channel of communication. LinkedIn is not it. Try a few others like e-mail and see what happens.

Bryce Sanders is president of Perceptive Business Solutions Inc. He provides HNW client acquisition training for the financial services industry. His book Captivating the Wealthy Investor is available on Amazon.