REVISED: 9 Hints to Make LinkedIn Messenger Easier to Use!

LinkedIn's New Inbox is Confusing.  This Will Help!

Have you seen the new LinkedIn Messaging, or some people are calling it the new LinkedIn Chat feature? (Not to be mistaken with the #LinkedInChat that we have every Tuesday night at 8:00 pm.)

REVISED:

You get to the new Messenger app by clicking on the Chat bubble on the upper right hand corner.

The new format is instantaneous, and allows for a real chat – should the person you are messaging happen to be on LinkedIn. (PS – apparently video and audio chat is on the way too!)

You can see the previous messages that you’ve actually sent to a connection, or you can write new ones. You can even add pictures, add files, and emojiis are on the way too.

Here's a video that will walk you through the changes:

Hint One:

Here’s where it get’s tricky… If you add an image and then just hit enter….well, nothing happens (on Safari anyway). What I have found is, to see the “send” button we are all used to, uncheck “press enter to send” and then the new send button will pop up.

If the other person is on their account, you can text each other pretty much immediately. 

REVISED: You can also now do group chat.  Unfortunately, this also means that we have lost the ability to send a message to a group of people without revealing who the other recipients are (like a BCC).  

Hint Two

But where did all my old info go? If you click on the three dots in the upper right of the chat window, that's where some of the old information is hidden:

• Mark as unread
• Mute the conversation
• Forward the conversation
• Report as spam
• Delete the conversation

Hint Three:

If you get something that's spammy, or you're just not interested in it, you can either get rid of it just by clicking on the little “X” on the top right of the message in the left rail. Or you can delete, report, forward, mute or mark as unread form the small menu in the upper right corner. Of course, you can create a new chat by clicking on the pen and paper icon, then you just start typing the person's name and it should populate.

Hint Four:

And of course (right now) can still go to someone's profile just by clicking on his or her name and send him or her a message straight from his or her profile.

Hint Five:

About now you’re probably saying “But Viveka, where in the world did our invitations go?” If you go to the connection icon (the little guy with the plus sign in the upper right hand corner) you’ll find it. BUT WAIT! Don’t CLICK on it. HOEVER instead! If you click on the icon, it's just going to take you to the import connections screen. You just want to hover over it. Then click on invitations.

It's basically the same “People You May Know” screen that we’ve had for a while. On this page I can either just accept that invitation or get rid of the invitation.

Hint Six:

If I am not sure I want to connect with someone, just hover over the little comment box icon, then very quickly jump down and click on the reply arrow. That brings you into messaging. From there you can say, "Hey, Jane, I noticed that you wanted to connect. I was wondering why." That allows you to message someone who's invited you to connect without actually having to connect with them. I think that's incredibly confusing. I find it annoying, but they didn't ask me.

Hint Seven:

I would recommend saving both the message and invite screens to a favorites folder or to your browser so that you can find them easily without all the jumping around. I saved it to my “LinkedIn” in my chrome browser so now I can really quickly get to my inbox without having to “hover, crap I missed it, it slid, and I clicked on the wrong thing."

Click to Tweet: 9 Tips to make LinkedIn Messenger easier to use: https://ctt.ec/Udh9E+

Hint Eight:

Looking for Invitations you have sent? And if they have been accepted? Click on the arrow next to the icon in the upper right hand corner and going down to “sent invitations”. Here you can see invitations that you've sent and people who haven't responded yet. This is the one thing I think they have made easier. Just click on the invited you want to remove and cancel the requests.

Hint Nine:

The app is coming, the app is coming!

GONE

The two things I can’t find… and please reply in comments if you’ve seen them, are:

• The ability to sort by “Sent Messages”. It seems like I have to go though all my messages… but I suppose that just a matter of scrolling down…
• Also, you used ot be able to accept a bunch of invitations in one fell swoop… It looks like you can't do that anymore. (Which I think is OK, because you really should be checking out the people who invite you to connect)

So that’s the new LinkedIn Messenger! What do you think? Do you like it? Hate it? Let me know in comments below, and of course feel free to share this with your network by clicking on the LinkedIn button above.

For more info on how to use LinkedIn effectively go to www.B2BLinkedInTraining.com