LinkedIn News & Tips from Link?Ability

LinkedIn News and Ideas

Here’s what’s new or noticed on LinkedIn in the last month.

?? Add a live link to any image or video you post.

Currently a mobile-only feature, it allows us to direct connections and followers to another web page. We can add display text instead of the actual URL so this is best as a call to action. So make sure your link text contains a verb such as join, subscribe, visit etc. (See more below on this.)

?? Invite connections to follow pages with fewer than 500 followers

We’ve not seen this yet but it means that when we set up a company page for a client, we can invite 50 of Lynnaire Johnston ’s connections who could be interested in following it. The page gets off to a good start and takes less time to reach that magic 500 followers.

?? Illustrate soft skills

Important for those using LinkedIn for recruitment or jobhunting, this allows you to detail your skills by answering a standardised question through either written or video responses.

?? Save post as a draft

Previously this has only been available on mobile or in articles on desktop but now it’s made its way to desktop. Thankfully. It will reduce the likelihood of losing a partially completed post. Now we just need this on comments!

?? More media formats for Services page

Until now we’ve been able to upload only images to the Services page but this change means we can add videos and links, too. Your Services section has its own URL and sits at the bottom of your profile intro section which gives it significant prominence. Many people have yet to recognise its importance so haven’t set this up but if it’s relevant to you, definitely add this.

?? Image post template

Currently mobile-only, it allows us to create an image post with a background, text, stickers and a link. There appears to be no opportunity to add images though. (See more below on this.)

?? Pin comment to top of the thread

This is a great way to ensure that your own comment stays at the top if you add a link, an update or have something more to say. An excellent way to use it will be to add your resources, links, what you do etc. Kevin D. Turner does this brilliantly.

?? Networking tab added to live events

When attending LinkedIn Lives, there’s now a Networking tab that sits alongside the Comments tab which lists all the attendees. It’s ideal for growing your network as you can connect with them from here. A bonus is that the default invite mentions the event which gives you something in common.

?? Create a button for your website that says ‘Follow me on LinkedIn’

This is a great way to persuade more people to see your LinkedIn activity. It’s especially effective if you have strong traffic to your website.

?? 2 updates for Groups

An automated welcome message and criteria-based acceptance makes joining easier and eases the workload for group admins.

?? A change to Notifications

Role changes, birthdays and anniversaries will be grouped together under the Celebrate tab.

?? New default connection invite message

This alerts you when someone already follows you. The inference is that because they have been following you, you might like to accept their invite to connect. This may not be the case however, so treat it as you do any other invite.

?? Meet the hiring team

For job seekers there’s a new feature that allows you to research the people who are involved in the recruitment process of a job you’re interested in. ?

?? New-look messaging inbox

Mentioned previously, this is now rolled out to a substantial number of LinkedIn members.

Similar to the Outlook email system, messages drop into either Focused or Other folders. It works slightly differently between the desktop and app versions. So far, we’ve found that Inmails seem to go into Other along with Sponsored messages and LinkedIn offers. But accept an Inmail and it moves to Focused.

How to Use the New Post Formats to Best Effect

In the past month, new ways to create posts have arrived, causing us to rethink our content. Not only are we looking at using these new features in our posts but how we upload them is also under review.

The new features – links in images and video, and template image posts – are both only available via the app at present. However, we’re not fans of uploading content this way because of the extra time it takes to make all the elements available on mobile and because of the temptation to wing it and create ad hoc posts.

All our posts are prepared in Word so we can check for errors, add the post URL to the file after posting and save them for future reference. To us, uploading these via mobile is simply not as practical or as fast as using desktop – although it should be admitted that this may be an unfamiliarity issue rather than a tech usability issue. If you are used to writing your posts on a phone keyboard, this may not be a problem for you.

But if we want to use the new formats, we currently have no choice but to upload them from the app. And we do want to use them, not only to see for ourselves how they work but also because we want to see how they perform as LinkedIn often boosts posts which use its new features.

Link in Image Feature

LinkedIn has always tried to keep us on the platform and for a long time actively discouraged us from including links by penalising posts containing them. Now, they’ve had a change of heart and are allowing us to add live links to our images. There are two examples in the New Features section above. The feature allows us to add 30 characters of text that displays instead of the raw URL. That’s not much to get your message across so make it count. Give a clear call to action such as ‘visit my website’, ‘subscribe to my newsletter’, ‘follow my page’ or ‘connect with me’.

The critical thing here will be to make the link relevant to both the image and the post. This will be easier said than done because we don’t always have more content elsewhere on the same topic. Consequently, it will be tempting to include any old link to something we want to promote and this may not always be a good thing.

One of the limitations with the link is that the size of the text can’t be changed and it takes up a fair chunk of the image space. You can, however, move it around.

Image Template Feature

This feature too is only accessible via the app but will no doubt come to desktop in due course.

The feature is limited in that you can’t add branding elements such as your logo or any images. You are restricted to text, stickers, background and a link (as discussed above). If personal branding is important to your (and it should be), this makes it difficult. Because you can’t include images, you can’t import your logo or any other elements that you normally use. Colours and fonts are similarly limited although there are lots of backgrounds to choose from.

On balance, we think that if you wish to use the live link feature, you’re best to create the image in Canva, upload it to your phone and add the link from there. If you want to adhere to your branding guidelines, you’re best not to use the template post feature.

How the New Formats Perform

This is by no means a proper test, but in terms of performance, here’s what we’ve found:

?? The initial link in image post from Lynnaire’s account 3 weeks ago has achieved a view count of 2400. It was posted on a Wednesday. This is a respectable but not spectacular result.

?? The initial template post was uploaded on a Saturday and in 48 hours had achieved 1550 views. This is better than the link-in-image post published first.

?? One uploaded for a client on a Thursday achieved 4150 views in 3 days although this included tags to several well-connected and followed people. The link took people to a Stuff article which might also have been a factor in this post’s success. It performed considerably better than other posts for the client over the past month.

More experiments will be needed before we decide on the usefulness of these posts so we will continue to try them out.

If you wish to understand the nuts and bolts of the template post, Link?Ability’s Lynnaire Johnston has compiled a slideshow with details on how it works and what can be included which you can see here.

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Are you serious about LinkedIn and keen to learn how to get the most from it? Join our Link?Ability membership site. 100+ articles, videos, interviews and other exclusive content. Become part of a supportive, active community. Your?first week is free. Details here.

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Download Our Latest E-Book FREE

As you’ll have read in our article above, the options for publishing posts on LinkedIn are improving all the time. New formats, changing trends and alterations to the algorithm all impact how our posts perform.

We’ve compiled a short e-Book, Creating Compelling Content that Unlocks the Power of LinkedIn, to help you create content on LinkedIn. This will be useful if posting is new to you or you’re looking for different ideas you may not have considered before.?

It’s entirely free (because that’s the way we roll) and to download it go to the link above where you can scroll down to its listing in the Featured section.

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Events – Recent and Upcoming

You May Have Missed…

LinkedIn Events: How to Reach New Audiences, Promote Your Brand and Build Your Professional Reputation with Lives and Audio Events

With the recent arrival of LinkedIn Audio Events, we now have two event formats with which to reach and develop our audience – Lives and Audio. Each has its merits and in this Link?Ability webinar we examined how they work so you can decide whether to add them to your content or marketing line-up.

LinkedIn Live with Lynnaire – Why Knowing Your Why Will Help You Achieve Your Dreams

‘When WHAT you do is line with WHY you do what you do, and HOW you want to express it – you will have the passion that gives you energy to pursue your dreams.’ Lynnaire Johnston 's guest was ???Dan Dominguez, MBA ??? of the WHY Institute which has developed the world’s first WHY Discovery Tool to help you clarify what motivates you and brings you joy.

Don’t miss…

[LinkedIn Live] Your LinkedIn Profile - Rich Insights from Lynnaire Johnston hosted by Moreno P.

Thursday September 8, 11am NZST

[Webinar] How to Message on LinkedIn Without Getting Blocked

It’s very easy to direct message your connections and others on LinkedIn but how do you do it without annoying them or getting blocked when you’re trying to build relationships? Join us on Thursday September 15, 1pm NZST for all the gen on best ways and etiquette around messaging.

[Audio Event] LinkedIn with Lynnaire

Hear about LinkedIn’s newest innovations and ask the questions about LinkedIn that are on your mind. Thursday Sep 8, 6pm NZST

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