LinkedIn - It's All Change - What You Need To Know

From January 31st 2017, the majority of LinkedIn's members will have received a totally new look user interface for their desktop version of LinkedIn. The following is a post, I first published on November 1st 2016, when I was informed by my good friend and fellow LinkedIn trainer Mark Williams that he had received the new version of LinkedIn. Here's what these changes will mean to you;

As LinkedIn quietly rolls out the most significant update to its desktop experience since it launched in 2003, it does so with some great new features but the loss of some key ones too. This post explains what we know right now.

One of the secret fears, all LinkedIn and social media trainers and consultants have, is that they'll wake up one morning and everything they thought they knew about their favoured social media platform has changed out of all recognition - well today is just one of those days!

It's Saturday, October 29th 2016 and it's one year ago, this very day, that my father lost his battle with life, so today was always going to be a challenging one. What I wasn't quite prepared for was the sound of drums to start reverberating across the social media jungle, as fellow LinkedIn experts began sharing, discussing and analysing the news that we kind of knew was coming but we didn't expect to arrive with quite such a bang!

The New LinkedIn Desktop Has Arrived (Well for some anyway)!

Last month, sites like Social Media Today, announced the unveiling of LinkedIn's new look, although no one was sure when this would be rolled out to the network of 457 million members globally, other than it could be this year. Well, ever so slowly, members are beginning to report that they have received the new look LinkedIn desktop version, so incredibly and with zero fanfare, LinkedIn is changing and you need to be aware of what this is likely to mean to you and how you can use the free platform going forward.

LinkedIn Needed To Change

Although this new look LinkedIn has seen the loss of several key features, 'free' users have come to rely upon and it would be easy to see these developments as a backward step, I feel we have to look at where LinkedIn is going and the fact that most studies and surveys indicate that this platform is still way and above the best social media site for generating new business, compared with Facebook, Twitter and all the others. There will be a couple of bumps along the road but, in my view, LinkedIn was due a change and a face lift and that time has come.

As I do not yet have the new look, desktop version of LinkedIn, I don't have any screen grabs to demonstrate to you, so instead, I have recorded a short video, below, where I'll explain some of the main changes and what they mean for you. Don't miss this video, as they're important changes and they will affect your use of LinkedIn.

In sharing this post with you, I'd like to recognise a couple of fellow LinkedIn trainers, Mark Williams and Angus Grady, who alerted me to these developments and in particular Mark, who has had the new version (although apparently not visible to us yet) for the past week and has been thoroughly researching these changes.

Many thanks for viewing my post and would you please share it with anyone you feel would benefit from the advice provided.

If you have any private questions on the subject matter you can connect with me on LinkedIn and send me a message, or else you’ll find my contact details on my LinkedIn profile uk.linkedin.com/in/stevephillip.

You can also follow me on Twitter at https://twitter.com/Linked2Steve