Linkedin Product Enhancements 2.0 - Let's Make Linkedin Even Better Together!

My dream is for Linkedin to be the Nr. 1# curated, personalized, business networking platform that covers the needs of its' users (working professionals, businesses, and job seekers) to find jobs, to find talent, and to find new business opportunities. Linkedin would become the digital platform they spend the most time on and that brings them the highest business ROI. But the prerequisite is to adapt to the ever-growing needs of the users and make product enhancements accordingly, especially taking into account that GenZ is entering the workforce and are more social than previous generations. I am a visionary and an innovator and I imagine an upgraded version of Linkedin "2.0". Let's build it together!

?Even though I am active on multiple online platforms daily, Linkedin is by far my favorite. And I hang out with people who are power users too. This has been my second home for a little over a year now. We share and promote content, we network, we collaborate, we consult others how to grow, we meet up live on Linkedin Lives and podcasts and at conferences and Linkedinlocal events…and we talk about and teach about our beloved Linkedin! So the purpose of this article is to kindly get your attention to listen to our feedback. Note that I am a Product Marketing Manager by background so I know and appreciate very well what kind of work goes into defining and building good features and product functionality. Anyways, I care deeply about Linkedin product features and want to keep sharing with you my feedback and thoughts as a power user.

CONNECTIONS (continued)

In my first article, I wrote a lot about connecting but there is so much more to say! A few additional issues I’d like to address are as follows:

In My Network > People You May Know. There is only an option to click CONNECT and this will send an invitation without offering you any way to customize it and add a note. Personalized invitations are so important so this is a major issue!

In the Connections section, I think the UI design could be much cleaner (why can't we have one Sort menu instead of three)?

The free Sort by/Filter options are quite good, although again, the UI design, in my opinion, needs improvement. However, Linkedin does not have the ONE filter/sort feature I want most: Recent Activity. To interact with other users, I most want to understand who is an active user and when they last logged in. Are they on the platform often or haven't logged in during the past year? Huge difference. This influences my decisions to contact them via Linkedin or maybe search them out offline instead, if I invite them to a group or not, or if I tag them in my post. In my mind, this is a priority enhancement Linkedin should add.

CONNECTION NOTIFICATIONS

These pop-ups are so annoying and unnecessary. I wish there were a way to turn them off. I don’t understand who would actually find them useful or what purpose they serve.

SENT INVITATIONS

When you send an invitation to connect with someone, the Connect button changes to Pending. I would like to see the date I sent the request and if it were viewed or not. This would help me know when and if it is appropriate to follow up. Optional: Show when the person was last active. Linkedin is a business networking platform so these features may seem small but to someone trying to gather leads or close deals, this is very useful.

OOO FEATURE

As we can’t see the activity of every user without going to their profile, when we send an invitation request or a message and don’t receive any reply, we have no way of knowing the status of the recipient. It would be very practical to allow an out-of-office status so we know the person is currently not active. It would also be great to send an auto-reply to anyone trying to reach them during that time.

PRIORITY INVITATIONS

The idea is great to separate priority from potential random requests but this could be done much better. I would love to see personalized invitations become mandatory with a category selection like Common Connections, Business Inquiry, Common Interests, or Met In-Person. The major flaw of the Priority invitations is that it only takes into account common connections. Business inquiries are a priority too but some people don’t know they should use In-Mails instead for these. Also, when I meet someone in-person at a conference, Linkedin doesn’t take this into account at all so those invitations are not placed in the Priority group. On several occasions, I was at a business conference and someone sent me a request and later on, I had to search through hundreds of non-priority/junk requests to find these people I highly wanted to prioritize. Linkedin, please provide a better solution to account for real-time business needs.

PROFILE PICTURES

I think Linkedin should more actively monitor the quality of the users by requiring profile photographs to create and save a new profile and not permitting people to save photos without a face for personal accounts, and lastly to verify identity by requiring users to take a screen capture of their face on their webcam and upload to Linkedin in order to save their profile. Linkedin would use face recognition technology to match the profile picture and the webcam picture and only accept if it were an 80% or higher match. Right now, there are many fake profiles. This would greatly reduce the problem.

-No Animals – No Celebrities – No Sunglasses -No Babies -No Nature Scenes -No symbols, flags, slogans, or logos -No stolen stock model photos -No stolen identity photos 

MESSAGES

I feel as a business networking platform, Linkedin should support users through the entire B2B flow. Messages play a key role in the process to connect people yet this is one of the most underdeveloped features on the whole platform. We need massive improvements. The ability to save a draft message directly while writing it and come back later would be an urgent need. Right now, we are forced to switch to a 3rd party email platform or online meeting platform to continue conversations. There are many, many feature enhancements I could write about here. I miss unread, important messages, all the time, because of the poor design and lack of features. These missed messages lead to missed business opportunities that affect my financial success. Huge Priority! In fact, there is a very easy way to fix this on both sides: Allow the Sender to tag the type of message they are sending by different categories: Business-Related, Time-Sensitive, Social, Introduction, or Other, with color codings and/or symbols so visually, I can quickly see which messages I should tackle first. Secondly, allow the Recipient to flag certain messages as Important so I can prioritize which ones I reply to first. Another important feature that is not being addressed is the Calender. We should allow both Sender and Recipient to integrate and sync with their main calander and propose meeting times to accept with ease. After all, this is what Linkedin is all about! It is sad that because of poor Messages features, we leave Linkedin to conduct business further. Also, I'm not sure who designed this but next to the Send button are three dots that, when opened, give the following options:

This is unnecessary and redundant and the UI design can easily be improved. Also, why can't I flag as Important or Time-Sensitive when I send?

Thank you, Linkedin, truly for everything you’ve given us. I really feel that Linkedin changed my life. I’ve met more amazing people online who I never would have otherwise connected to. I’ve gotten such unique collaboration and business opportunities, all thanks to Linkedin. I had the pleasure to become a Linkedinlocal host and speak at several related events too. Lastly, I’ve made lasting friendships. I am infinitely grateful for my Linkedin family.

In case you did miss it, here is the link to my first article about Linkedin features:

P.S. I would also be humbled to hear Gyanda Sachdeva's opinion about my product suggestions. Note that for my first post, over 20k people saw it but not a single Linkedin team member contacted me nor liked nor commented, which made me a bit sad!

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