Welcome to a new episode, lots to talk about this week as I cover 9 changes that have happened recently….yes that’s nine!

But first…..

Interesting Stuff I Saw This Week

Microsoft is now tying Satya Nadella’s pay to LinkedIn’s performance

What I learned by bringing down LinkedIn.com

The Best LinkedIn Photos Analysis from JDP

Nine New Features / Changes to LinkedIn

In no particular order, these are the 9 changes I discussed in this week’s show;

New ‘Who’s Viewed Your Profile’ design.

Everyone has this new layout but only premium account holders get the privilege of seeing the wonderfully named ‘Interesting Views’ filter

In reality ‘Interesting’ seems to be defined by people that the algorithm thinks are senior level (some weren’t), not local, industry specific (other than not in your industry) or anything especially relevant…definitely not a reason to upgrade your account!

When I browsed through ‘All profile views’ I found several more senior people and others that really were ‘interesting’!

This feature would be very useful if LinkedIn were to allow us to define what we find interesting…but LinkedIn don’t believe in giving us such choices normally so I see no prospect of that.

Saved Articles on Desktop

This feature has been available on mobile for a long time and now it is finally coming to desktop, not all will have it yet as it is still rolling out.

Group Posting From The Homepage

This is very interesting…..I think this might be an indicator of where LinkedIn are going with groups.

Check out the comments in the above video post and you will see a range of opinions on this. This is what I think;

• You can’t post to your feed and groups at the same time, nor can you post to more than one group so I see no reason why this would encourage spam.
• The problem with groups is that members no longer visit them, this encourages people to post without having to visit the group which might encourage people to start posting again
• I believe this may be an indicator that they will start to show group posts in the feed (not happening currently). That could be a very clever move.
• The main reason groups failed was spam and the persistent posting of external links with no commentary or questions. If group posts are seen in the feed then the algorithm will do it’s normal job of restricting the distribution of any external link or spammy/unpopular content.
• Group managers are complaining that they want moderation tools back but the reality is that they almost always grow their membership to such a level that it becomes impossible to moderate correctly. The reality is that LinkedIn has reached a size where tasks like these can only be managed effectively by AI. Bringing group posts into the feed will solve that problem.
• As it stands currently groups are no better because posts are not showing in the feed, nor are you notified unless you are @mentioned or if there is engagement on your post or one you have already commented on. I hoping this will change but for now, groups are still a waste of time.

Free Users Can Activate A Free Month Trial Of Premium….(even if they have done this before)

Option To Subscribe To New Article ‘Series’

This is a new 3 month pilot scheme where initially 100 Article authors can create ‘series’ and allow people to subscribe to be notified when new content is published from the series.

Here is an article from LinkedIn detailing some of the series;

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/real-estate-trends-media-misinformation-more-top-series-lee/

To be able to see a series, you would already need to be a follower of an author or you can search for content using #linkedinseries

You can find more information here;

Series on LinkedIn – FAQ

New Privacy Setting Allows You To Change ‘Connect’ to ‘Follow’ On Your Profile

This also shows in a search shortlist

I have only changed my setting for the last week or so and rather oddly my invitations to connect have stayed at the same level! I might have gained more followers but I haven’t really tracked that, unlike John Espirian who shares his results here;

This setting can be found in your privacy settings as seen below (desktop)

LinkedIn Have Developed New ‘Feed Ranking’ Optimization.

I didn’t get too much time to cover this one…it’s a big subject and probably worth covering in more detail in a further episode.

The headline is that LinkedIn realised that ‘super users’ like Bill Gates, Richard Branson etc were swamping our feeds as the algorithm was programmed to favour popular posts. Whilst this will still happen to some degree, they have tweaked things so that we now see more from people LinkedIn considers ‘close’ to us (whatever that means). The net effect is that super posters get less views (remember Josh Fechter complaining about ‘only’ getting 15-20000 views when he was used to 50k levels?) and normal people (like us) see an increase, assuming our posts are good quality.

If, like me, this sort of stuff really ‘floats your boat’ read this article and share your thoughts by leaving a voicemail (orange ‘ask me a question link on the right) or drop me a free LinkedIn message.

https://engineering.linkedin.com/blog/2018/10/linkedin-feed-with-creator-side-optimization

Andy Foote highlighted this topic recently after seeing a talk from LinkedIn’s Bonnie Barrilleaux. She also (unusually for a LinkedIn staffer) commented on his post which makes forinteresting reading

To be honest, there is nothing especially new in this, we have discussed how the algorithm builds our feed many times and our assumptions have been pretty accurate but it’s always nice to hear it straight ‘from the horses’ mouth’.

Let’s pick this subject up again, in more detail, in a further episode.

LinkedIn Emails Shrink

Thanks to Sandra Clark for this one. Apparently the emails you receive notifying you of a LinkedIn message no longer include a preview of the message. Now they are merely a notification that you have a message.

Return of LinkedIn Events

Partly as a result of the popularity of #LinkedInLocal, LinkedIn have decided to bring back LinkedIn Events! This will be a completely new design to the much missed feature from a few years ago and they are currently running a pilot programme for c150 event hosts in the San Francisco and New York areas.

I’m looking forward to seeing how this develops.

LinkedIn and events go together well and it makes sense to return this feature, I’m looking forward to seeing what it looks like.

So there you have it, 9 changes – some more significant than others but it’s clear LinkedIn have been busy and working hard to improve our experience.

That’s it for this week. Let me know if you have any questions or suggestions for the show.