LinkedIn - Content Discovery & Content Retrieval

Google is the world's No. 1 search engine. In February 2024, it had 91.6% market share across all platforms, 82.3% share on desktops and PCs, and 95.4% share on mobile. Microsoft Bing is the distant second, with 3.3% market share across all platforms, 10.2% share on desktops, and 0.5% share on mobile. (Source: GlobalStats statcounter)

Is Bing the only search engine that Microsoft has to compete with Google Search? What about this search bar?

LinkedIn started out and is still perceived as a professional social media network. But it is also a very large, user-generated knowledge repository as well as an expert network for working professionals.

Effective Ways to Retrieve Saved Content on LinkedIn:

On LinkedIn, people post news articles and their perspectives on the articles. There are those who add to the hype around a product or technology, and there are those who try to temper the hype. Most of these conversations happen with the posters' actual names, designations, work histories, etc. So, it becomes much easier to decide on how much weight to place on these opinions on LinkedIn compared to those made with pseudonyms on other online discussion boards.

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Nearly a billion working professionals are part of LinkedIn, from people starting their careers to CEOs of companies as well as people who are retired but are actively involved in their respective industries. I agree that most of the content posted on LinkedIn is based on opinions, but they are informed opinions backed by years of knowledge and experience.

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Today, people post content mostly related to their professional lives on LinkedIn. There are people who publish articles, and there are even people who publish newsletters. There are active groups on a number of topics. LinkedIn has valuable information, opinions, and insights. Yet, when one has a query, it does not occur to search on LinkedIn. People do not go to LinkedIn to learn about a topic the same way they would go to Wikipedia, Reddit, or Quora.

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LinkedIn's mission statement is 'Connect the world's professionals to make them more productive and successful.'

Tagline for LinkedIn's company page on LinkedIn is 'Welcome to a world of career opportunities, advice, inspiration, and community. Find your [in].'

One of the images about the LinkedIn app on the Play Store mentions: 'Get content that helps you grow. LinkedIn feeds does suggest content that is useful & informative.'

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Does LinkedIn offer the tools to make professionals more productive and successful? Sure, LinkedIn Feeds is a great content discovery tool. LinkedIn suggests potential connections that could be mutually beneficial in the long run. LinkedIn allows users to save content with bookmarks. But once you start bookmarking content regularly, say for six months, is it easy to retrieve the content from the bookmarked list? How do you find trends and patterns in the content that one has saved?

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LinkedIn does not offer 'tags' or 'folders' functionality to organize bookmarked content. It does not offer search functionality to search through bookmarked content either. Just a simple scroll that lists bookmarked content in reverse chronological order. LinkedIn loads content in batches with each scroll, which, after a point, feels like doom scrolling. How can professionals be more productive and successful if they are not able to retrieve the information that they thought was interesting and would be useful later?

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In fact, I saw a couple of posts on LinkedIn as well as on Reddit where users expressed the need to have tags and folder functionalities on bookmarked content. There are people who store useful links in excel.

There are third parties that offer Chrome plugins to organize bookmarked content from LinkedIn. But what is the solution for people who use other browsers? Also, not everyone would be comfortable using browser plugins.

LinkedIn now allows users to create newsletters as well. Allowing users to easily organize and retrieve bookmarked content with tags, folders, and search functionalities would make it easy for them to source information from bookmarked content. In order to make the information generated on LinkedIn more useful and to make users more productive on its platform, it should offer tags, folders, and search functionalities for bookmarked content.

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Bing + LinkedIn:

When we search a query on Bing, we get a number of results. We can shortlist specific types or formats of content by using tabs such as videos, images, etc. But one tab that we would expect to see on Bing is missing—a separate tab for content from LinkedIn. Given that Microsoft owns both Bing and LinkedIn, this is rather a missed opportunity.

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Sure, if we use the format "query + LinkedIn," we will get content exclusively from LinkedIn. But most people might not even know this, or they might not even remember it at the exact moment when they are searching on Bing. So, Microsoft should offer a separate tab for content from LinkedIn on Bing.

Bing also users to login with Microsoft or GitHub credentials but not with LinkedIn credentials. Bing should offer users the option to login with LinkedIn and see content (from public posts, not messages exchanged 1-to-1) posted by their connections and exchanges in their groups that are relevant to their queries. This would in turn help to increase engagement on LinkedIn.

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One type of query that keeps popping up in WhatsApp groups from time to time is: do you know anyone working at XYZ company or in a particular sector, or does anyone have experience working with a particular tool? It's strange that LinkedIn does not have the mind share similar to Reddit or Quora so that they will search these queries on LinkedIn.

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With a vast majority of our connections, we do not know about their skillset, experiences, or who they can connect us with if we do not interact with them on a day-to-day basis. Bing search results that include content from LinkedIn will eliminate this problem to a certain extent and help us take advantage of our network when we are looking for some information.

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This would be a win-win for both Bing and LinkedIn. Bing would get to tap into the knowledge base of the world's largest professional social network. Displaying LinkedIn content for Bing search results would help to uncover interactions and conversations that would not have organically happened otherwise.

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Summary:

LinkedIn should improve its search capabilities and market the power of its search bar. It should allow users to classify saved content with tags and folders and should make it easy to retrieve saved content with search capability, including the option for filters. Bing should include a tab for content from LinkedIn, just as it has tabs for images or videos. Most importantly, Bing should offer the option of logging in with LinkedIn credentials and view content from and experts within the users' network that can help with their queries.