Fixing The Feed

Has your feed changed recently? Are you seeing posts from people who are unfamiliar to you?

This may be due to LinkedIn?? deciding that they know what 'quality' content looks like.

Not you...you are clearly not in a position to decide this for yourself!

This week I discuss what we can do to fix this.

That plus;

• AI comments are getting very annoying!
• The real reason customised invitations are being limited and a cool workaround.
• A very sneaky change to your data privacy settings
• Saved posts feature urgently needs updating
• My take on Public groups
• Profile verification favours men!
• Post of the week

LinkedInformed is a weekly podcast which you can listen to and subscribe to for free on any podcast app. These notes are merely brief overview of what I covered in the podcast so do listen to the full show on Spotify below or simply search for LinkedInformed on your podcast app of choice.

AI Comments

This starting get very annoying, especially when the comments come from an anonymous 'person' commenting from their company page...I dislike that at the best of times but it's 10x worse when it's generated by AI!

Here's a recent example on my last edition of LinkedInformed;

This is now my response to bots!

It's really rather pathetic the way the AI so often quotes someone like Albert Einstein! I think what I find most annoying is the amount of effort you put into researching and writing an article only for some divvy to come along and instruct a bot to make up some ridiculous comment. Comments from people that use bots do little to further distribute your content...even less when it's from a company page!

Customised Invitations

I have been contacted by many people who are mystified and disappointed by the decision to limit the personalised note on invitations to connect. Some people only get 5/month and others 10. Is it still being A/B tested or is there some other logic behind the discrepancy? Add your thoughts in the comments below.

Either way, limiting us in this way seems counter-intuitive doesn't it? That is until you understand LinkedIn's MO!

Anytime they make a change, I always ask myself this question...

'How does this impact Recruiters'

You see, the one cohort on this platform that are like Kryptonite to the LinkedIn Corporation are Recruiters who operate on a free account! They will do everything they can to force this group to buy their overpriced Recruiter product, or at least make them upgrade to Business Premium.

For years, Recruiters using a free account have been approaching potential candidates via the customised invitation note (a bad practice in my view) and this is the primary motivation behind this change. As is always the case, the vast majority of users suffer because of this one, relatively small cohort of users who are consistently targeted by LinkedIn??

'Members First' My A***!!

The good news is that there is a workaround! You can send most people an email to their work address using https://hunter.io/ as described in this excellent video post from an ex LinkedIn?? employee Jeremy Schifeling

Data Privacy Change

Chaleen Botha got in touch this week about a sneaky little change LinkedIn have made to our data privacy >Who can reach you > messages setting.

Here's how they previously looked.

and now they look like this

Spot the difference? Yup they have quietly removed the option to switch off sponsored messages! I did wonder if this was due to the EU legislation that forbids such messages but Chaleen is based in Australia and I'm in the UK!

Very sneaky!

Saved posts

When I recently wrote about the Algorithm report, I mentioned the opening line I now use in posts to encourage readers to save it (which apparently increases distribution)...

No time to read this now?You can save this for later by clicking on the 3 dots above and right ● ● ●

Several people contacted me to ask where they can subsequently find saved posts...the answer is a bit complicated which shows just how poor this feature is!

On mobile they are under resources > My items in your profile. On desktop they are not in your profile but in the left panel under My Items.

Not the most obvious of places and not as accessible as they should be so I think this feature needs an overhaul! Why not put a simple link at the top of our feeds

That seems like a simple solution to me! What do you think?

Public Groups

This post was recently published in the Engineering blog

Building Public Groups on LinkedIn

It was interesting to see how LinkedIn?? are claiming that public groups have seen a rise in activity in groups, I can't say I have noticed this myself and on reading the full article, I really not sure public groups are going to be the saviour of this long forgotten and largely ignored feature.

• You can't find public groups, a groups search has zero filters, it just relies on keywords only - very basic
• When scrolling through a groups search result, public groups are not identified.
• IF you do happen to find one, being able to see the activity and even Like, send or repost a post is a much better way to assess whether a group is worth joining...that said, all the ones I saw were still full of spam and uninspiring content so more of a reason not join!
• Public group posts do appear in a normal post search but there is no filter for groups content.
• The vast majority of groups are still private.

Whilst I think it's a positive sign that they are paying attention to groups, it yet again seems to me that they are missing so many open goals! Why on earth they don't properly consult users on these matters is a mystery to me...or if they do, who on earth are the talking to?!

Verification Issues.

Whilst I'm a fan of profile verification, it's clear that they need to find a much better solution!

People have been getting in touch frustrated that they either can't get their passport to scan or they get rejected because the name on their passport isn't exactly the same as in their profile.

Whilst this happens to men - ie people who are known by their middle name etc it mostly impacts married women who still use their maiden name in business and at work. This is a very common scenario and means that quite a sizeable percentage of the population won't be able to verify their profile, which makes a mockery of the whole process!

This post from Alice Darbyshire sums up the problem nicely and shows how ineffective (and sexist) the verification process is!

Fixing the Feed

This post from Shari Berg this week neatly sums up what many have been saying about their feeds

I suspect this is as a result of the changes recently made in line with a drive to promote 'Knowledge and advice' content. This was announce a long time ago but we now seem to be seeing the impact...and users are not happy!

The problem is they believe they know more than we do about what ‘quality’ looks like!

When LinkedIn?? mess with our feeds in this way, it rarely ends well...so is there anything that we can do about it?

The problem is usually exacerbated when the algorithm receives a lack of signals from users, leaving it to only follow the general 'rules' for content as set by LinkedIn??.

So here are five actions you can take to try to educate the algorithm in what you do and don't wish to see.

1. Unfollow creators who post things you don’t wish to see. Simply hit the 3 dots at the top of the post and unfollow the author...try to do this every day for at least 2 weeks.
2. Unfollow those that engage with posts that you don't wish to see (unless their own content is great

3. Spend more time commenting on the sort of content you do wish to see. Go to the activity section of your favourite creators and/or search for posts by keywords

4. Save posts from creators you enjoy

5. Communicate directly via DM with your favourite authors. Direct messages have always been the strongest indication of 'relevance'

So in summary provide the algorithm with negative (unfollowing) and positive signals, when you see a post you really enjoy...

Save it > Comment on it > DM the author about it

Post of the Week

Well after my appeal for nominations last week, I received quite a few...thank you to all those who took the time to send me a link to their nomination but I'm especially grateful to Greete Eluri for this fantastic video post.

I've seen jobseeker videos similar to this before but the attention to detail and creativity of this one is truly fantastic. Well done to Marta, I'm sure you will be getting plenty of job offers!

That is is for this week, I hope you found it useful.

Until next time