LinkedIn? Updates and Changes | Opinion – How LinkedIn’s Massive Changes in 2024 Impact 2025| Upcoming Events and more

In this month’s newsletter:

?? New LinkedIn? features, changes and updates

?? Opinion – How LinkedIn’s Massive Changes in 2024 Impact 2025

?? Recent and upcoming events

Latest LinkedIn? New Features and Updates

Profiles

?? 2 changes to ‘Open to’ button in your profile intro

? Updated to open a pop-up box to access any of the 3 options not already implemented: Hiring, Work & Providing services.

? Show that you’re open to volunteering

Discover personalised opportunities that match your skills, interests, and preferences. Specify the causes you’re passionate about, the skills you can offer, and your preferred location by clicking the?’Open to’ button below your profile photo in your profile intro.

?? ‘Followed Hashtags’ return to left rail of the Home page

Many people reported that hashtags had disappeared as the debate about the usefulness of them quietly smoulders on. If you lost yours they should now be back.

Posting

?? Possible way to be included in video feed

If your video has some news or business value, consider submitting it to LinkedIn News via its submission form

This is part of a new on-demand hub for ‘LinkedIn creation resources, inspiration and opportunities’ which some people are likening to an updated Creator mode suite.

?? Share posts to other socials, messaging apps and file saving folders

Share your posts off LinkedIn quickly and easily from the app. The social platforms, message apps and other apps you have available on your phone can be used to post, message or house your posts.

?? 3 ‘Celebrate an occasion’ templates being retired

Disappearing are Appreciation, Welcome, Milestone, Award, Celebrate event, Graduation, Product and Skill Assessment Badge, leaving us with New Position, Work Anniversary, New Certification, New Educational Milestone and Project Launch templates.?

?? Sort ‘Who’s viewed you profile’ by most recent or most relevant

When available, this will enable us to use two separate sets of analytics to follow up those who have shown interest in us and our work.

?? Automated post translation

If you have selected English as your primary language you no longer have to click Translate to see the post in English.

?? Start a post updated to ‘Share your next video or start a post’

The aim of this is to encourage more of us to create video posts. However, many people still don’t know this feature exists (app-only)

?? Choose whether to see ‘Most relevant’ or ‘Most recent’ posts on app posting

Coming to the app is the availability of a setting that lets us decide between ‘Most recent’ or ‘Most relevant’ posts in our feed view. It will show up to the right of the Search box as ?? and displays a slide up option box.

Networking

?? AI-powered Invite to connect

In the app you may have an option to use an AI-generated message when connecting if you have Premium. This is said to find what you and your invitee have in common and craft a message around that but I’ve yet to see a message created by LinkedIn’s AI that I wouldn’t be embarrassed to send.

Miscellaneous

?? Adverts coming to Messaging

As if our LinkedIn inboxes weren’t enough of a mess already, adverts are being added! They’ll be in two forms: sponsored ads between messages in your inbox (like our feeds presumably) and banner ads rotating above the inbox. We can’t opt out of adverts but can choose between the 2 formats.

?? 10 more languages added

Vietnamese, Persian, Greek, Hebrew, Finnish, Hungarian, Bengali, Marathi, Punjabi and Telugu have been added for a total of 36 supported languages. There are 2 ways to change the language LinkedIn displays in: in Settings & Privacy page or the Language link in the LinkedIn page footer.

?? New game: Tango

This is the 4th in LinkedIn’s games bundle and can be found on the My Network page. For some, the game number has been retired.

?? Upgraded Terms of Service effective tomorrow (Nov 20)

Following the furore over LinkedIn using our data and content to train its AI without our consent, it has decided to change its T&Cs. It is more important than ever that we read and understand these so I urge you to read Kevin D Turner’s article about the changes at

In it he says ‘LinkedIn is offering an opt-out setting for members who do not want their data used for generative AI training.’

?? Help updated

Help now returns info on topics based on your activity and the page you request Help from, plus a direct link to the robotic AI Chat support.

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Want to REALLY maximise the power of 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.

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OPINION – How LinkedIn’s Massive Changes in 2024 Impact 2025

Changes to LinkedIn this year have been huge. Not just in terms of new features and updates but also macro-level changes. Examples include the deluge of AI. An algorithm change reducing organic reach and follower growth. The splitting of the feed into 2.

All these have a huge impact on what we see, who’s content we see and who sees our content. How?

The impact of AI

For the past 2 years we’ve seen LinkedIn openly embrace AI. We can use it within the platform to write posts, messages and sections of our profiles. LinkedIn’s Collaborative articles are also generated by AI.

But where AI has truly made an impact is in the feed. Posts and post comments are routinely created by AI and posted as the supposedly authentic work of the author.

Algorithm expert Richard van der Blom reports that the number of posts created between May and October that were fully generated by AI rose by 18% while AI-generated comments increased by 340%.

Richard says, ‘This influx of AI content has led to a decline in meaningful engagement and connection on the platform. As more AI-generated content fills the feed, users experience less authenticity and personal interaction which has resulted in reduced engagement overall.’

Algorithm change

Added to the onslaught of AI, have been changes to the algorithm which begin early in the year and likely continued.

There has been a significant reduction in content reach this year which reduces visibility generally but also means our connections see fewer of our posts while our followers and 2nd degree connections see more.

This has implications for your content and network growth strategies.

Split feed

Also new in 2024 has been the standalone video feed which has had huge impact despite being available only on the app.

LinkedIn has been giving an algorithmic nudge to videos for this feed, a common practice for the platform when introducing new features. Reach for some people with some videos has been stratospheric and totally out of sync with normal results.

Currently, videos that appear in this feed are mainly highly produced and created by big players such as LinkedIn themselves, major news networks and the likes of Harvard Business Review. Videos are also being republished from YouTube and other platforms.

This means you need to scroll through many videos to find any from your 1st degree connections, despite many producing such videos specifically for the new feed.

What all this portends

The deluge of AI, changes to the algorithm and the new video feed have significantly impacted what we are now seeing on LinkedIn.

The makeup of the feed has changed as well, with a substantial increase in promoted posts, Collaborative articles and LinkedIn adverts, alongside the reduction of personal posts. A good 50% of the feed is now commercial which cannot be what members want to see.

Will this cause them to leave the platform in droves? Possibly. But more likely it will be a slow leakage of the best content creation talent.

LinkedIn stalwarts, like us, will instead be revisiting their strategies and looking at making changes in 2025. Many will be wondering whether to try LinkedIn advertising.

We see the main options available as being:

?? An increase in direct messaging

?? Greater emphasis on engagement

?? Wider and more meaningful collaboration

?? Greater use of events – hosting AND attending

?? Increased use of videos aimed at the new feed

We no longer see posting as our greatest source of visibility and will be considering publishing less often in 2025. Instead, we will pay more attention to sharing vital information with our Link?Ability members, hosting events that widen our audience and becoming even more collaborative.

In short, we will all need to be doing LinkedIn differently in 2025.

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Looking to Up Your LinkedIn? Game? Here are 5 ways we can help:

? Best-in-class profile makeovers to be found in searches and electrify your professional brand

? Tailored LinkedIn? marketing for yourself and your business that positions you as the go-to expert in your field

? Team training and upskilling on use of LinkedIn? to bring in more business

? 1-2-1 LinkedIn? mentoring and coaching that will elevate your presence above the competition

? Our Link?Ability site free for 7 days at linkability.biz

Talk to us about what interests you most. DM Lynnaire Johnston or email me at [email protected]

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Upcoming Link?Ability Events

(All upcoming event links can be found at my Linktree as they’re uploaded )

?? Nov 21 – Link?Ability Radio with Lynnaire

Discussing the latest new features, a topic of the day and an opportunity for you to ask questions or share your LinkedIn? experience.

?? Nov 23 – LinkedIn Mastery, hosted by Roy Kowarski and co-hosted by Lynnaire Johnston, Martin Stark, Leanne Calderwood, CMP and ILIA FRANCIS. The topic this week: Engagement is down, HOW should we react?

?? Dec 5 – Link?Ability Radio with Lynnaire

Discussing the latest new features, a topic of the day and an opportunity for you to ask questions or share your LinkedIn? experience.

?? Dec 12 – LinkedIn Live: a look back at the changes in 2024 and what it portends for 2025

In our last Link?Ability LinkedIn Live for 2024 we’re looking back over the many changes to the platform this year – large and small. We’ll look at the effects of AI-generated content, along with LinkedIn’s strong push toward pay-to-play. There’s also the new video feed, a potential replacement for Creator mode and the likely demise of collaborative articles as LinkedIn’s AI experiments fizzles. We’ll look at trends too, what’s been working and now isn’t, and how we can regain the visibility we’ve lost in 2024. We hope you’ll join us.

?? Dec 19 – Link?Ability Radio with Lynnaire

Discussing the latest new features, a topic of the day and an opportunity for you to ask questions or share your LinkedIn? experience.

These events will be added to our Linktree once they've been set up on LinkedIn?.

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You may have missed...

LinkedIn Company Pages - The 2024 Definitive Update with Michelle J Raymond

Catch up with the co-authors of the Amazon best-seller Business Gold - The Only Company Pages Book, to see what's changed on LinkedIn pages this year.

Packed with insights, we covered:

?? The hottest new features for Company Pages in 2024

?? Is LinkedIn Premium really worth it for your page?

?? Major trends shaping 2025

?? Tips for maximizing the value of your page

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How to get in touch with me

Connect with me at https://www.dhirubhai.net/in/lynnairejohnston/

Email Lynnaire: [email protected]