LinkedIn Updates and Changes | How LinkedIn Fares Against the Top 5 | Upcoming Events

In this month’s newsletter:

?? New LinkedIn features

?? How LinkedIn Fares Against the Big 5 Social Media Platforms

?? Recent and upcoming events

Latest LinkedIn New Features and Updates

Profiles and accounts

?? Changes to website details in Contact info

Until recently, we could write unique text to describe a website link to encourage visitors to click. However, that is now disappearing and only the standard choices are being offered. Those are Company, Personal, Blog, RSS feed, Portfolio and Other.

Before:

After:

?? Addition to Notifications

‘Conversations for you’ shows similar posts you may be interested in. To bring this up head to Notifications and click on a Notification. (None of the significant changes said to be coming to Notifications have yet been made available on any accounts we manage.)

?? Featured section size change

The items in our Featured section may be becoming considerably longer. This will require a rethink about the images we choose to display here as those in landscape will be automatically cropped in a way that renders them useless for this purpose.?

Featured before the change:

?Featured after the change

?? ‘Unique views’ joins post analytics

This estimates the number of accounts that have seen your posts. It differs from Impressions which is the estimated number of times your posts were seen on LinkedIn. This looks to be a much more meaningful metric and can be found in the Analytics section for each post.

?? Saved items easier to retrieve

Until now you had to dig deep to find any posts or other items on LinkedIn that you’d saved. But now it’s showing up in the left rail of your Home page.

?? Games now available

There are 3: Crossclimb, Pinpoint and Queens and they can be accessed at

https://www.dhirubhai.net/games/ if you’ve not received a direct invitation to play. Beware that unless you change the setting, your connections can see if you’ve played.

?? Service provider matches

This is part of the Services section for Premium members and started rollout on May 13. Those who’ve been notified are told they will be able to opt in to ‘send their Request for services proposals to additional similar service providers when they contact a service provider. Requests are matched with providers based on service category, location (if applicable), and language’. In other words, requests for proposals will also be sent to your competitors.

Posting and newsfeed

?? Interactive video feed

The new video feed feature is beginning to roll out. Eventually there’ll be a Video button at the bottom of the Home screen which will take you direct to the feed, but for now access is via a prompt ‘Swipe up for videos’ which MAY appear on top of some videos. If you miss this or don’t activate it, you won’t get the video feed. At least for now.

Videos seem to be a mix of influencers, media organisations, promos and YouTube shorts.

Videos can be reacted to and commented on in the usual way. The post associated with the video can be viewed by tapping on the video.

?? Labels for AI images and video

LinkedIn has begun adding labels to AI-generated content. Images and videos created by AI will be identified by an in-image tag. Tap on the tag and it displays information about the image source.

Company pages

?? Increase in Testimonial length in Premium for pages

Initially, this was only 80 characters which had to include the testimonial giver’s name. Now it’s 250, although only a portion of it displays. How much depends on the device being viewed from and the size of the viewing text. 78-80 characters seems the optimum for all text to be viewable without having to hit See more.

?? Updated layout for company page admins

A rearrangement divides admin view into 4 sections:

? Today’s Actions – shows at the top of the page as a series of prompts including Add a valid email, Respond to a page mention, Invite connections and Feature top content.

? Manage Recent Posts – see how your posts are doing.

? Track Performance – This section shows you search appearance, page visitor, new follower and post impression numbers. Before, we had to find them in the separate Analytics section.

? Join Conversations – Posts on pages that your page follows to encourage you to comment as your page.

One issue that has surfaced with this new layout is that the follower invite feature has been removed from its highly prominent position at the top right of the admin page, to 3 levels down. It's now under Analytics / Followers and then miles down that page but with no information there about the number of credits available.

Odds and ends

?? Build relationships with potential internal champions

‘View employees in recommended jobs’ is a prompt that shows in the Jobs tab on a company page. You’ll see team members with similar titles to your recommended jobs. A couple of ways this could be used are to better understand the role or to network with those people shown.

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How Does LinkedIn Compare Against the Other Top 5 Social Media Platforms?

Each year HubSpot canvasses marketers to find out how they are using social media platforms.

LinkedIn generally performs poorly against the other top 5 – Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, TikTok and X. But this year the situation has become worse.

In a survey of 'which social platforms does your brand use', LinkedIn came 4th behind Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and ahead of X and TikTok. 38% of brands use LinkedIn for B2B and 31% for B2C.

While this looks good, LinkedIn was not in the top 5 for content receiving the most engagement.

In a list of which platforms offer the highest ROI, LinkedIn was way down the list behind the main channels – only 6% of marketers said it was their highest ROI generating social media platform.

LinkedIn also performed poorly in the list of platforms offering brands the biggest potential to grow their audiences at just 7% compared with YouTube’s 18%.

More interesting stats:

?? 95% marketers rate long-form videos as having average or high ROI.

?? 96% of marketers rate interviews, podcasts, and expert discussions as having average or high ROI.

?? 95% of marketers rate ephemeral, temporary content like IG stories and polls as having average or high ROI.

?? 96% of marketers rate virtual reality (VR) + augmented reality (AR) content as having average or high ROI. 9

Use of AI is decidedly on the increase with 71% of marketers using AI tools. However, 65% are concerned that using it to create content could harm their brand reputation. Main uses for AI are generating ideas, writing copy and repurposing content.

On the online buying front, consumers primarily do their research via social media and video, not search engines. This is a huge switch and has come about because buyers like to do their due diligence before paying for a product or service.

We’ve all seen how some brands appear to be everywhere online. That’s because they’ve taken the time to build an active online community. 86% of social media marketers say this is crucial to a successful social media strategy in 2024.

The report says, ‘It has become an expectation for consumers to be able to follow their favourite brands on social media. Our data has shown that consumers are expecting more engagement and support on social media than ever before. Building an online community isn’t the same as just posting on social media. The expectation for social media marketers in 2024 is to become much more involved, meaning less posting just to appear “active on socials,” and more meaningful, reciprocal, community-focused interaction.’

Short-form video

Of all the content formats, short-form video has been consistently effective for social media marketers over the past few years. Short-form video lends itself to jumping on trends and aiming for engagement, not sales or revenue.

Hubspot’s survey found that the content formats consumers enjoy most are images or photos, short-form videos, live videos or live streams, and long-form videos. They also most like content that is humorous (24%), relatable (18%), interactive (12%) and authentic (12%). Being trendy is bottom of the list at 7%.

?? Memes and funny posts are outperforming highly produced, product-focused content.

One in four marketers say their main goal for social media in 2024 is to increase brand awareness and reach new audiences.

How do you do this on LinkedIn? That’s what the near constant arrival of new features helps us achieve.

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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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Events

(All upcoming event links can be found at https://linktr.ee/LynnaireJohnston as they’re loaded to LinkedIn. Dates and times are in NZST unless stated otherwise.)

?? Jun 6 – LinkedIn live hosted by Lynnaire Johnston and featuring guest S. Scott Mason – Developing Creativity, Content and Connection on LinkedIn??

Sharing creative ideas for adding personality and charisma to your LinkedIn presence.

?? Jun 13 and Jun 27 – 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.

?? Jun 20 – Pop Up Live

?? Weekly on Fridays at 5pm EDT (Sat 9am in NZ) LinkedIn Mastery, hosted by Roy Kowarski and co-hosted by Lynnaire Johnston , Martin Stark , Leanne Calderwood, CMP and ILIA FRANCIS .

You may have missed…

How to master video and LinkedIn Lives for authenticity and visibility. A LinkedIn Live with Gillian Whitney .

Video and livestreaming are two of the most successful content formats in 2024 so if you’re not using both, you’re missing out! This LinkedIn Live will help you overcome the barriers holding you back from mastering this medium.

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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

Follow our Link?Ability company page

Email [email protected]