If you’re looking to improve your LinkedIn profile or promote your personal brand, a lesser known (but incredibly useful) feature is to claim your username – or as LinkedIn call it, your Public Profile URL. So why would you want to do that?

1. It makes it easier to market yourself: using your name makes it easier for you to be found
2. Consistency across digital platforms: securing the same username for Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and other social networks helps you retain more control of what people find when they search for you
3. Cleaner design: whether on business cards, corporate stationery or within press releases, being able to show your name (as opposed to a long thread of numbers and letters otherwise automatically generated)

Claiming Your LinkedIn Public Profile URL

On the main navigation, go to Profile and select Edit Profile. You will see your profile with the quick edit icons. Below your profile picture, you will see your current Public Profile URL (highlighted in this image by the red box).

You will see on the right hand column the option to Customise Your Public Profile. Beneath that section, you will see ‘Your public profile URL,‘ with the option to ‘Customize your  public profile URL,’  (highlighted in this image by the red box).

When you click  ‘Customize your  public profile URL’ a box will pop up for you to edit your username. Input your preferred username (LinkedIn will indicate whether this is available or not).  Your custom URL must contain between 5 – 30 letters or numbers (but without use spaces, symbols or special characters). When done, click ‘Set Custom URL’ and you’re done.