Latest LinkedIn? News & Updates | A quick word from Lynnaire | Lives, audio events and more

In this month’s newsletter:

?? New LinkedIn? features, updates and changes

?? A quick (video) word from Lynnaire

?? Recent and upcoming events

Latest LinkedIn? New Features and Updates

Note: new features and changes are grouped together into categories and are not chronological. As always, I am indebted to Kevin D. Turner and his band of eagle-eyed contributors for alerts to new features and changes on LinkedIn.

Profiles

?? 2 live links in profile intros with Premium

Last year Premium members had to choose between the blue live link associated with Creator mode or the grey Custom link that follows us around LinkedIn. We couldn’t have both. Now we can!

The advantage of the former is we can create our own display text. The latter has to be chosen from a list: Visit my website, View my portfolio, View my blog, Book an appointment, Subscribe to newsletter or Request services.

The Custom link has also been in grey, until now making it unclear that it was a link. That has now been changed to blue.

Kevin Turner reports that to activate both, set up the Premium custom button first, then add your link. The only downside of this seems to be that at present the Premium custom button defaults to Request services.

?? Weekly sharing tracker

This is a new way to see our level of activity and is now in our Analytics & tools section (or will be soon). It suggests a goal of one action a week (far too few in our opinion) in three categories – posts, comments and contributions to Collaborative articles – and shows how you’re doing with that.

?? ?? added to Notifications prompts

Improve your Notifications by telling the algorithm which types of posts you want to see less of.

?? My Network changes more widely rolled out

Months ago, a change to the My Network tab was detected and has been progressively rolled out since. The headings – Manage my network, Invitations and Celebrations – have changed to Grow and Catch Up. ‘Grow’ houses connection requests, events invites, suggested people and pages to connect/ follow. ‘Catch Up’ includes job changes, anniversaries, birthdays, education.

Those with the new version of this section have been able to directly message from the same screen. Now you can also react and comment on the post about their change, if they have one, directly from this section.

?? Profile side cards changes

On our Home pages, the information shown in the top left has changed. Not all our headline is visible anymore with only 55 characters displaying. But added is your current company name. This is not visible to your profile viewers.

On the app your background banner, truncated headline and current company have been added. Saved posts moves down so we need to scroll to get to them.

On the right, is ‘Add to your feed’ which gives you options for following company pages and other members based on your activity and network. (Not shown in these images.)

Images below show before the change (left) and after (right); desktop first, then app version.

??? Followed hashtags moved (aka buried)

As part of the changes to the left column of the Home page, our followed hashtags have moved. Well, less moved and more buried. Now, to find them you need to go to the hashtags page and click the [ … ]? More menu at the top right. And to get to the hashtags page you need to click on a hashtag to open it.

Another reported option is to search for hashtags in the Search box but that doesn't always work. This may be part of LinkedIn dropping its support of hashtags although some people still find them useful.

?? Removal of display text for websites in Contact info

Website links in ‘Contact info’ have lost their description / call to action. Until recently, the text added previously was still showing but now it’s displaying only the options available when uploading (up to 3) websites: Company, Personal, Blog, RSS feed, Portfolio and Other.

Posts and newsfeed

?? Pre-publication newsletter and article link

We can now create a URL of a newsletter or article before it’s published. One use of this might be to add it to newsletters or blogs that are being prepared at the same time. Once the piece goes live, the URL will take people directly to it. This is known as a staging link and can be found in the Manage / Settings area of newsletters and articles.

?? Embed upgrade for Newsletters and Articles

To date we’ve been able to embed video into our newsletters and articles but now it’s reported that we can also embed LinkedIn profiles and company pages. The difference between doing this via an image and embedding is the latter throws up an image AND is a link to the profile or page. Here's an example.

?? Easily find older posts

Search has been updated with three new options for hunting down older posts. Added are posts of the past 1, 2 and 3 years. Once you narrow your search by the content type and the person who published the post, you can find almost anything.

?? Changes to searching by post format [Content type]

Earlier in the year we were given a new tab, Content type, which allowed us to search posts by their format. The options then were video, images, job posts, newsletters, live videos and documents. New is collaborative articles and gone are job posts and newsletters.

?? Newsletter comments easier to find

Newsletter comments on desktop are now pushed over to the right instead of sitting beneath the content as they did before. This makes them easier to spot and respond to either as the newsletter creator or a viewer.

?? Update to AI-generated Insights feature on posts

Currently, these are accessed via prompts in the form of questions immediately underneath posts. However, they will be replaced with an Insights button that sits in the Post engagement menu. From the example we’ve seen this looks to replace the Send button which may move up to the [ … ] menu.

What we’re seeing currently.

?? Change to sharing posts on the app

The?? arrow on posts on the app indicating Share, has changed to a slide-up option. Kevin D. Turner says you can now share directly from LinkedIn to other apps, including messaging apps.

?? Alignment of app and desktop feeds

You’ll likely have noticed that what you see in your feed on desktop differs from what appears in the app. It was a great way to see a variety of different content and formats. Now though any edits you make to your feed preferences will apply to both feeds. Traditionally the app feed focused on short-form content like polls, images and portrait videos while the desktop feed gave us more long-form content such as multi-image and document posts.

Company pages

?? Custom highlights added to Premium for pages

Up to 4 external links can be added to your page. One displays in the page intro section, the others in the About. This provides excellent additional visibility for your off-LinkedIn content such as YouTube, website, linktree, blog etc. You can find more detail on this here.

?? Message button on pages with Premium to become default

At present, the custom link is the default link on our Home pages in first position and in blue. Messaging is in second spot. LinkedIn is changing this so the Message button is the default (to the left). Given that few people (if any) ever seem to message a page, the point of this is moot.

Currently:

Miscellaneous

?? AI Course reviews

Thinking of doing a LinkedIn Learning course but not sure if it will help you? AI will provide you with a summary of learnings from the course and whether it’s a good fit for you.

?? Speaker reminder message

If your event speaker hasn’t accepted the invitation you sent them now you can quickly and easily remind them.

?? 4 AI-powered changes for job-hunting

? Resumé feedback – compares your resumé with a job posting you’re interested in to see if it’s a good fit. (Premium only)

? Conversational job search – instead of using traditional search filters like job title or location, type in the parameters of importance to you making the process faster, easier and more intuitive. (Premium only)

? Job assessment – shows whether a job matches your preferences, skills and qualifications.

? Cover letter – helps draft a personalised cover letter for review and edit. (Premium only)

?? Actively hiring added to Search

In Search, under ‘People’ there’s a new tab – Actively hiring – which takes you to a dropdown menu into which you can add roles or choose from those displayed.

?? AI-powered changes to LinkedIn Learning

Instructor coaching – learners interact with instructors and receive personalised, actionable AI-powered advice. Use of this feature triggers a royalty payment to the instructor.

?? YouTube style adverts come to LinkedIn

In-stream video ads are being added to content published by news organisations such as LinkedIn News, Reuters, WSJ etc. To see the publisher’s content you’ll have to sit through the ads first.

?? Retirement of Resume Builder with Keyword Insights

This is being replaced with a Premium AI-assisted tool.

?? Group post suggestions

When visiting a group you’re in, you may now see Suggested posts prompt. The aim is to stimulate activity and engagement.

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A quick word from Lynnaire...

With the arrival of the new video feed, video is fast becoming the must-have on LinkedIn?. It can be used in posts, on profiles and as Link?Ability's Lynnaire Johnston explains here, in newsletters and articles.

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Want to REALLY master LinkedIn to achieve your professional goals?

Check out our Link?Ability site with dozens of hours of how-to videos, articles, interviews, podcasts – everything you need to know to achieve your professional goals using LinkedIn? whether you’re just starting out or have been on LinkedIn? for a while.

Grab your All Access Pass FREE for 7 days here.

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Recent and Upcoming Link?Ability Events

(All upcoming event links can be found on our Linktree as they’re loaded to LinkedIn. Dates and times are in NZST unless stated otherwise.)

?? Jul 11 – LinkedIn live hosted by Lynnaire Johnston and featuring guest Martin Stark, the Courage Champion – How to use storytelling to become visible and memorable on LinkedIn??.

Martin is a professional keynote speaker and has his own LinkedIn audio show. He’ll be sharing how he’s used storytelling in his work on LinkedIn to make him visible and memorable, to build his network and to bring in new business.

?? Jul 18 – LinkedIn Radio with Lynnaire (Audio Events)

Discussing the latest new features, a topic of the day and an opportunity for you to ask questions or share your LinkedIn experience. This week we're talking with Michelle J Raymond about changes to company pages.

?? Jul 25 – Pop Up Live, a short live event hosted by Lynnaire Johnston on a specific LinkedIn topic.

?? Weekly on Fridays at 5pm EDT (Sat 9am in NZ) LinkedIn Mastery, an audio event hosted by Roy Kowarski, co-hosted by Lynnaire Johnston, Martin Stark, Leanne Calderwood, CMP and ILIA FRANCIS. Our July 6 topic is content creation for the holidays.

You may have missed...

Developing Creativity, Content and Connection on LinkedIn?? Using Charisma with S. Scott Mason .

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Looking to Up Your LinkedIn Game? Here are 5 ways we can help:

? Best-in-class profile makeovers

? Team training and upskilling on use of LinkedIn

? 1-2-1 LinkedIn mentoring

? Our tailored LinkedIn marketing programme that helps you become the go-to expert in your field

? Our Link?Ability site free for 7 days at linkability.biz

Talk to us about what interests you most. DM Lynnaire Johnston or email her at [email protected]

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How to get in touch

Connect with or follow Lynnaire

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Email [email protected]