You all know that every social media platform has a similar but at the same time distinct way of notifying you if your message has been sent, delivered, and read.
Now, you may think just because LinkedIn has a more “professional feel” while using it that there would be some kind of special system that doesn’t notify you of these things.
I would guess that the most important information regarding the message you’ve sent, regardless of its contents, is whether it was read or not.
That’s why today, I’ll be showing you how to see and tell if a message you’ve sent over your LinkedIn profile was read or not.
Of course, this may seem like a silly topic, but in situations where you’re building a list of potential LinkedIn leads, or trying to raise the level of interaction there, this kind of information might be worth a pot of gold!
So, if you’re interested in finding out more, I highly suggest you keep reading and find out everything I’ve prepared for you relevant to this topic.
LinkedIn “Read” Receipts – Why Are They Important?
First, I’d like to tell you about the importance of this feature in your LinkedIn chats, how you can use it to your advantage, and then we can talk about how to actually tell whether someone read what you sent them.
But before we get into that, does LinkedIn have read receipts? The answer is yes.
The biggest piece of information that you get from your “read” receipts is to know whether the information you wished to reach someone actually reached them or not.
This is quite important, especially if you’re trying to build a base of people that you’re actively and on a regular basis communicating with, so keep that in mind.
Another thing why “read” receipts are important is to know when to stop spending resources on somebody, and to redirect them to a conversation that may lead you to close a deal.
People often try to keep the interaction going without considering that it may lead to nowhere and that resources spent on that interaction may have greater results if they were spent on something or somebody else.
In addition to that, written communication is quite crucial on LinkedIn since it’s the primary form of communication, so until you get a phone call with somebody you’d like to contact by that way, sending and receiving messages is what you’re limited to.
So, keep in mind these reasons for which “read” receipts are important moving forward in order to help you understand why I’m writing all of this.
A Sent Message – Read Or Not?
So, how do you know if the LinkedIn message has been read? It may be easier than it seems! Like with all social media, LinkedIn has a similar way of letting you know whether your message has been read or not.
If a person opens your message, you’ll see a small profile picture of theirs in the lower corner of your chat with them. Depending on the update that LinkedIn is on at the moment, that picture may be in the lower left-hand side corner or the lower right-hand side corner of your screen.
This is a clear indicator that someone has read your message, or at least opened it.
You can’t really know if the message is read or not, but you can know that that person has opened the chat and seen that you’ve sent them a new message.
Knowing this, there might be times where someone has read your message, and you see their profile picture at the bottom of your screen, but you don’t get a response.
That usually happens if a person that you’ve messaged opens the chat but doesn’t read the content of your message.
If this happens, you are not to worry! Some people like doing so so their phone isn’t overwhelmed with notifications, and they usually come back to answer those messages once they get the chance.
So if someone read your message but didn’t respond – give them some time, they just might shoot you a message back!
Otherwise, if you don’t get a response in a few days period, you should slowly start thinking about reallocating your resources to another place.
“Read” Receipts – Turning On & Off
Some people do like to keep their “read” receipts turned off on all devices and on all apps that have this feature.
But the question is – can this be done on LinkedIn as well as on some other platforms like WhatsApp?
Well, it certainly can be done.
“Read” receipts can be turned off and back on again as much as you’d like on LinkedIn, and many people like to use this feature.
So if you see someone responding to your messages without getting it, that indicates that the message was read that we talked about earlier, chances are that they’ve turned off this feature.
“How can I do this?”, some of you may ask. Here’s how:
- Click the Me icon at the top of your LinkedIn homepage.
- Select Settings & Privacy from the dropdown.
- Click Communications on the left and select Messaging experience.
- Under the Messaging experience section, click Change next to Read receipts and typing indicators.
- Turn the toggle on or off.
It’s as simple as that!
But, the question of should you do this still stands. I’d say that if you’re logged onto your personal LinkedIn, you can do whatever you’d like.
Otherwise, if you’re on a profile where you’re speaking as a representative of a company you’re working for, I’d say that there are some things that shouldn’t be done, and turning off your “read” receipts is one of them.
This may come off as unprofessional and you can seem like you don’t care for the conversation or that you’re trying to hide from your potential leads, prospects, or even clients!
Nobody wants that, so in order to avoid looking like that, I highly suggest you keep your “read” receipts on.
“Read” Receipts Turned Off – How To Manage That?
Some people don’t know how to approach a person on LinkedIn if that person’s “read” receipts are turned off, and I understand where those people are coming from.
But contrary to some beliefs that people who do this do it to hide from companies that try to sell their products, this is usually done if people try to clear up their notifications by reading messages and then get back to them, but don’t want to come off as not interested.
Of course, there are some cases where people really want to be left alone and that’s why they turn off their “read” receipts, but those circumstances are rare, and you shouldn’t come across them too often.
If you do, you should know how to gracefully thank people for their time and move on looking ahead and investing in communication that will lead you to your desired goal.
But, if a person you’re contacting has their “read” receipts turned off but communicates with you on a regular basis, you shouldn’t put much thought into why they’ve turned them off in the first place.
LinkedIn “Read” Receipts – Summing Up My Thoughts
Now that you know all there is about “read” receipts on LinkedIn, it’s time to sum up and see what we’ve learned.
Firstly, LinkedIn does allow you to see if your message has been read, but it also allows you to turn that feature off.
This is important since many people don’t know about it and that’s not good for a few reasons.
The first one is that they would potentially like to use that feature, but don’t know about it. The second one is that they see someone responding to their messages without seeing them first.
Both of these situations may be quite confusing, and confusion should be avoided.
In addition to that, it’s quite easy to see the “read” status of your message if the feature I’ve just talked about isn’t turned off.
A small and distinct picture of the person you’re communicating with is in one of the bottom corners of your screen.
All in all, this feature is amazing and quite necessary, even on a strictly business-oriented platform such as LinkedIn.
So use it to your advantage and see where your messages lead you!