How To Tell If Your LinkedIn Messages Were Read?

Written By Alex Cherry

This article will teach you how to tell whether the other person has read your messages on Linkedin. LinkedIn is an excellent resource for networking and finding new opportunities. However, if you don’t check your messages regularly, you may not know when someone has read them. Linkedin’s messaging feature is very similar to other social media sites, and you can tell when someone has opened and read your message. People are very busy on Linkedin and might not have time to reply to you right away. So this is important to know so that you can send appropriate and friendly follow-ups, which can be used to start valuable relationships. 

How to know when someone has read your Linkedin message?

If your recipient has turned on the read receipts in their privacy settings, you will see a very small profile picture in the lower right-hand corner of your message. If you don’t see the profile icon, the user must have turned off their receipts, or they haven’t opened up your message yet. Assuming that people may be busy to respond soon, so don’t have hard feelings if someone doesn’t respond immediately.

What are LinkedIn read receipts?

Read receipts show whether the person or group of people in a conversation have opened your message or not. When you are connecting with people, it is helpful to know whether others have read your message or not. Otherwise, you will be wondering if the recipient had a chance to open your message.

How do LinkedIn messages work?

When you sign up for your LinkedIn account for the first time, the read receipts are turned on by default. If you want to be active in your conversation, you should have your read receipts turned on. If both parties have their receipts ON, you will see a small icon in the corner that shows your message is read.

If you are on a desktop, you will be able to see the time when the user has read your message, but you won’t be able to see the date. This means you will be able to know that your message has been read but not necessarily the day they saw it.

If you are using a sales navigator to connect with new people, it can be helpful to know whether someone has opened your message. It will also help you understand who to target and whom to leave.

If you want to figure out which message you have read in your inbox, the ones you haven’t opened yet will be in bold with a blue notification on the right side of the message. This will show how many messages you haven’t read.

Should I turn off Read receipts?

If you are using LinkedIn personally, you can turn off your read receipts. However, if you connect with people, it’s highly recommended that you don’t turn it off. This is because you can’t see if people have read your message. This can be a problem in determining if you should connect with them.

How to turn read receipts Off?

Read receipts aren’t for everyone, and they can add additional pressure to reply. Thankfully, read receipts are enabled by default but can be turned off. Here’s how you can do it:

On Desktop:

Step 1 – Click on your profile icon at the top right corner of your LinkedIn account homepage

Step 2 – Navigate to ‘Settings & Privacy’ from the drop-down menu

Step 2 – Navigate to the ‘Communications’ tab in the left-side menu

Step 3 – Tap on ‘Messaging experience’

Step 4 – You will see the first option as ‘Read receipts and typing indicators.’ Toggle the button to turn it off

On Mobile:

The process remains almost the same on mobile as well.

Step 1 – Click on your profile icon in the top left corner of your LinkedIn account

Step 2 – Tap on ‘Settings’

Step 3 – Navigate to the ‘Communications’ tab under settings

Step 4 – Under ‘Messaging experience’ and you will find ‘Read receipts and typing indicators’

Step 5 – You can choose to turn off read receipts while toggling the default button

How to communicate well in your messages on LinkedIn?

If you want to improve your communication on LinkedIn, here is some advice that you want to keep in mind:

Complete your profile information 

Consider LinkedIn as your online resume. Whether you’re looking for a job or not, you should spend some time ensuring your profile is complete. A complete profile will reflect your professional life. When people see your profile and get enough information, they will be more willing to message you.

Keep it short 

Be friendly and concise with your message. Otherwise, you will lose the recipient’s attention, and they might not respond to you.

Be Professional 

It is well known that LinkedIn is a professional network, and most people use it for business. This is why you need to make sure that your messages are professional.

Actively engage in the platform with others. 

If you only message when you have some work, you will suffer consequences later. If you are an active member, you will be noticed more, and people will tend to respond to your message.

Don’t be salesy 

There aren’t many people who want to receive your sales pitch. That’s why you need to save your sales pitch for someone with whom you have built a solid relationship.

This way, you can improve your chances of reading your messages sent to the user and responding to you more meaningfully.

What does a grey checkmark on a LinkedIn message mean?

The check marks are indicators that your message has been sent to the person but they have not yet read it. Their profile picture will show up when they have read your message.

Key Takeaways

LinkedIn’s read receipts feature is a valuable tool to determine if your messages are read, especially when managing the sales process. It gives you a chance to see whether your LinkedIn messages are being read or not. You will also know whom to message going forward and whom not to. However, if you are not confident about using this feature in the case of your personal profile, you can easily turn it off, as we explained in this article.