If you do business in more than one language, a secondary language profile is a must-have explains Brenda Bernstein
Are you a multilingual professional? If so, you will likely want to make your LinkedIn profile accessible to speakers of more than one language. You’re in luck! While the general rule on LinkedIn is that you may only have one profile, there is one exception to that rule: the Secondary Language Profile.
The latest statistics show that at least 35 million people in European countries outside of the UK are active on LinkedIn. Because so many users are multilingual and interested in connecting with people both inside and outside of primarily English-speaking countries, LinkedIn allows users to set up additional LinkedIn profiles that cater to secondary languages.
LinkedIn supports the following languages as of October 2018:
English, Arabic, Bahasa Indonesia, Chinese (Simplified), Chinese (Traditional), Czech, Danish, Dutch, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Malay, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Spanish, Swedish, Tagalog, Thai, Turkish
NOTE: You cannot change the default language of your profile once you’ve set it up in a particular language. It’s recommended that you set up a secondary language profile instead.
Creating a Profile in Another Language
To create a profile in another language, go to your Profile page and in the upper right corner, select “Add profile in another language”:
Then choose your language from the drop-down menu:
You’ll also want to update your name and Headline before clicking “Create Profile.”
Editing Your Secondary Language Profile
As stated above, LinkedIn does not translate your content for you, so now you’ll need to edit your secondary language profile. To do so, go to new language profile by selecting it from the upper right corner:
Once you are viewing your secondary language profile, you can edit the Summary, Experience, and Education sections as you normally would.
When you click the pencil icon to edit one of these sections, you’ll see that LinkedIn provides a snapshot of your primary profile to help you:
How Members Will See Your Secondary Language Profile on LinkedIn
When a member signs in to LinkedIn and views your profile, they will see it in the language of your primary account; or, if you have multiple profiles in several languages, viewers will see the one most relevant to them. The viewer has the ability to choose from your language profiles by selecting one from the upper right corner of your profile.
All of your language profiles will show up in search engines and have their own URL that includes “/?locale=” and the code for that language. For instance, a profile in French would appear as https://www.linkedin.com/in/yourname/?local=fr_FR.
Can I Edit My Skills & Endorsements or Recommendations?
Your Skills and Endorsements section will only appear in the language of your primary profile. While you are able to type any skill into that section, recruiters will likely not pay attention to skills that are not in the standard dropdown.
Recommendations will also only show in the language in which they were written. So, if you’ve worked in different languages, see if you can get recommendations in multiple languages as well!
What about My Posts and Articles?
All posts and articles are shown in the language in which they are written and are not connected to any one language profile. LinkedIn members can view all versions of your article regardless of their language or which version of your profile they are viewing. Members searching with keywords in a given language will likely find the version of your article written in that language; however, followers will see all versions in their news feed. Also, if members visit your profile and clicks on “See all articles,” in your Articles & Activity section, they will be able to view all of the versions you’ve created.
Deleting a Secondary Language Profile
If you no longer want your secondary language profile, you can delete it by selecting the language from your drop-down list and clicking the “x.”
The Benefits of Keeping a Secondary Language Profile
If you are looking to attract a multilingual audience, don’t miss creating a secondary language profile on LinkedIn.
All of your language profiles will show up in search engines and have their own URL, searchable in Google. Plus, having multiple language profiles will make the user experience for your viewers more fluid and positive, since they will be able to explore who you are in their own language. You’ll also be found for your competencies in multiple languages when people search for someone like you on LinkedIn.
So, if you do business in more than one language, a secondary language profile is a must-have!
