It’s worth my re-mentioning these ideas:
Make your personal assets (financial and social media among others) as secure as you possibly can. Here are a few ideas from my own usage on how I protect my LinkedIn account:
- I use a special purpose email address for my LinkedIn ID.
- I recently changed my LinkedIn password to make it harder to crack.
- I use two factor verification to be sure I am aware of any fraudulent entry to my account (so far none–yet). More on this easy tool here.
- I close out the places I am signed in every so often should I happen to use LinkedIn at a venue I am speaking at and forget to do so, limiting any other exposure. Here’s how. (It always surprises me how vulnerable I allow myself to be, but I am consoled by having the other security on my account.)
- I maintain a PDF hard copy of my LinkedIn profile and download an Excel file of all my 1st level connections to another secure location, should I lose access to my account. Yes it would be painful to recreate all this, but at least I have the language I have worked so hard to perfect and a list of my well-earned connections.
LinkedIn, your professional brand reputation portal, is a personal asset. Guard it like you do your bank account, with thought and redundancy to gain access to it just in case….
I hope you never have to thank me for posting this!
