News

• LinkedIn’s mobile strategy is a mess! – Ouch!
• The article by Howard Jacobson that is equally funny and annoying! The comments are horrendous!
• LinkedIn have confirmed via their Help center (see below) that Autopilot does not contravene their rules. This comes as no surprise to me but it’s nice to see it in black and white. I continue to get great results from Autopilot but have recently discovered that you cannot use it in Sales Navigator! This fact alone gives me a strong argument for downgrading my LinkedIn account back to Business plus.

Commentary

The New Messaging App.

The Good Stuff

Design

I really like the fresh, new design and the ‘Instant message’ feel to it. Whether this becomes instant messaging rather than ‘social emailing’ is largely down to how we decide to use it. I have had several ‘IM’ type conversations this week and I think the design encourages this.

Invitations

As mentioned previously, received invitations have been moved from the inbox and can now be seen by clicking on ‘see all’ on the right under the invitations/people you may know shortcut (you can also see the message on mobile). It’s a bit fiddly at first but you do get used to it eventually. I made a short Instagram video explaining it – follow me on Instagram for more of these.

Filtering

They have now added the option to filter your messages by ‘My connections’. By clicking on the ▽ next to ‘All messages’ in the left panel you can select to filter messages by ‘your connections’ now

Mark as unread

They have made this much simpler to do, just click on the dot on the left of the message to mark it as unread.

Group Messages

When you now send a message from within a group it opens up the messaging page and creates the message from there.

In the example above, Colin is a 2nd tier connection who I messaged in a group.

It then allowed me to create a new message from the inbox to this 2nd tier connection and then merged that new message into the conversation previously started from within the group.

However, if I try to create a new message to a different group member (not previously contacted) from within the messaging page it will not recognise the name.

So group messages cannot be created from the inbox unless they are to someone you have already sent a group message to.

Mute a conversation.

You can now switch off notifications for a specific conversation by muting it. This will be especially useful for group conversations. 

Emoticons! 

I’m sure many of you will think this should be in the ‘Bad stuff’ section but I’m giving them the thumbs up.

To be honest, I doubt I will use them very much and I suspect most people won’t but I have been saying for a while that LinkedIn needs to be more ‘inclusive’ and if this feature encourages the younger generation or users who prefer less ‘formal’ social networks to use LinkedIn more then I’m all for it.

The Bad Stuff

Group Conversations

The concept of a group conversation is great and something I am looking forward to trying but LinkedIn have removed the ability to send this message as a bcc rather than a cc format.

Previously we were able to create a message from within the ‘keep in touch’ section by selecting connections based on their tag (or other criteria) and then sending one message to multiple connections. At the bottom of this message was a small tick box that allowed you to remove the names and email addresses of all recipients (effectively the same as a bcc email). This is no longer possible.

It seems to me that this problem is caused by trying to combine instant messaging with normal email type messaging. Why not have both?

The only ’email’ type message you can now send is an InMail (premium only).

Maybe this is an oversight and they will correct it in time…..don’t hold your breath though!

Introductions

This may be completely unrelated but the introductions feature seems to have gone, or at least it’s broken.

When you view a 2nd tier, the option to send an introduction is still there but when you click on it you are sent to the new messaging app and nothing happens!

This would be a shame, whilst I would always prefer to ask for an introduction in person it is a fact that some people hate receiving calls and are more likely to respond positively to a message.

I have enquired about this with the help center who were as helpful as they usually are…they didn’t have a clue!! My guess is that this feature is temporarily broken and will return. 

Speed

I have noticed that the inbox/messaging app takes quite a long time to load. Not a deal breaker but a bit frustrating when you are in a hurry!

Conclusion

Overall I’m really impressed. It’s not perfect but LinkedIn has suffered from a ‘stuffy, boring’ image for too long and I applaud them for modernising this feature and encouraging more instant engagement which is what social media should be all about.

Question

What is the difference between ‘people’ and ‘leads’ in search results on a Sales plus account?

ANS = Firstly I don’t have that account so I can’t be 100% sure  but going by the sales navigator account I do have the term ‘leads’ always refers to people so I suspect they are one of the same.

Do you use Sales Navigator?

If so please get in touch and let me have your feedback. Next week I will be reviewing Sales Navigator and it will be really useful to hear from anyone who has more experience of it than I do.

Whether you like it or not, I want to hear from you so please drop me a line at mark@linkedinformed.com

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Until next time….