Notifications Complications
Mark Williams
Delivering LinkedIn?? advice since 2008 · LinkedIn?? visibility · Informed Podcast host · One to one online coaching · Speaker · Social Selling · Online sessions
A fantastic new notification feature was introduced this week but does this now require us to look more closely at our notification settings?
This article has also been recorded as a podcast;
But first, let’s take a look at what has been happening in the LinkedIn world this week…
Interesting Stuff I Saw This Week
LinkedIn is creating TikToks for young people entering the workplace. Yet another example of how LinkedIn are influenced by and embrace all things TikTok!
LinkedIn have put together a team of collaborators called ‘The Teammates’. This team is made up of TikTok influencers in the UK who will provide tips and advice to young jobseekers. Here is one of them, Jay Beech, announcing the collaboration.
The weird thing is that they seem to be doing it with some people that are not even using LinkedIn such as Megan Bolton or people that post rarely such as Max Klymenko but I guess they are collaborating with them for their TikTok influence and not their dedication to LinkedIn! It does suggest that this campaign is not about getting people to use LinkedIn, the LinkedIn branding is very much in the background. What I do find interesting is that TikTok have recently trialed their own job search feature call TikTok Resumes which is in direct competition with LinkedIn Jobs, perhaps this is LinkedIn’s way of combating that but if so, they are not doing a great job! I suspect the motivation is partly to help Gen Z job seekers and partly to work with content creators on a platform that they admire.
Either way, it seems like a very positive move to me and another example of LinkedIn embracing Gen Z
Intern gets a job because he borrowed a suit and laptop from his friends for the online interview. I came across this lovely story this week, it didn’t do especially well as a post but I thought it was worth mentioning here. It shouldn’t really be a poll but Vishal has used that medium to give it more airtime on LinkedIn, I’m seeing more and more of this due to the falsely high views polls receive…LinkedIn really need to sort that out! Anyway It’s still a great story…
What I like about this story is that Vishal is cleverly recruiting someone who has demonstrated that he has great friends and that is a quality worth recruiting!
Feedback from a previous episode
Sebestian Ong got in touch following the episode ‘The relationship between Followers & Connections’?to say that LinkedIn have improved the way they explain the difference with a popup message that appears when you try to connect with someone who has changed their profile to ‘Follow’ as the primary option. Now when you select to connect from their ‘More’ menu, you see this message;
I hadn’t seen this before (not surprising as I rarely invite anyone to connect) and it’s a good move by LinkedIn. I still think they should educate people to only follow if they are just interested in their posts, whether they have follow as their primary option or not. Too many people still have very little understanding of the difference and usually connect in order to see content.
Notifications
This week I noticed a brand new feature that allows you to ask for a notification when someone you follow posts on LinkedIn.
It’s a brilliant feature but many people are getting confused thinking it will mean that this persons content will appear in your feed. That is not what happens, when they post you will get a notification. Admittedly, if you subsequently engage with their posts as a result of being notified, then you will see their posts in your feed more often!
Some people are saying that this replaces the need to save creators posts page in your browser favourites/bookmarks…I’m not so sure! The problem is that past experience tells us that we don’t get all the notifications we should. At the moment, this new notification is working perfectly, but I’ve only enabled it for about 5 creators. What happens if I enable it for 50 or more? Will I get notifications for all of them? And if so, what will happen to my other notifications?
It’s a known fact that if you ‘over notify’ users, they will soon start to ignore them - just think about Outlook email notifications!
It seems inevitable that LinkedIn will have to prioritise our notifications, so how do content/post notifications rank against all these other ones?
That’s just a selection, I’m certain there are more!
That’s why I think we now need to review our notification settings. There is however a problem, it seems most of us don’t have any desktop notifications settings at the moment! Here’s what I see when I go to Settings > Communications > On LinkedIn…
It’s exactly the same on different browsers and on mobile! I ran a quick poll on LinkedIn and, at the point of recording, over 80% of people reported seeing the same.
Perhaps this is because LinkedIn are currently changing/updating the setting?
Anyway, John Espirian kindly sent me a screenshot of what we should be seeing…
I’m not sure but I think these options look new. Either way, it’s worth going through them (when you can) and eliminating those notifications you can live without. Personally, I would opt-out of all of them apart from the 3rd one.
It’s interesting that there are many that we have no option to opt-out of although there is always option provided in the 3 dot menu on the notification itself.
Maybe we will see more options appear in our settings when they reappear, or maybe we will need to rely on the 3 dot menu for a while but either way, I think we need to reduce our notifications if we want this brilliant new feature to work for us.
Post Of The Week
This was such a difficult choice this week!
I had two nominations and I found it extremely difficult to choose between them because they were so different. In the end, I opted for Nige Andrews inspirational post because I suspect that it will achieve higher engagement numbers given that at the time of recording, it’s only been live for a day. The runner up however deserves a special mention. Nischay Jain posted a screenshot of the LinkedIn profile of Twitters new CEO to make the point that 9/10 recruiters would have rejected him due to an unstable background prior to Twitter. It’s highly relevant and thought-provoking and would be a deserving winner most weeks.
The winner though is a heart-warming Christmas story from Nige. I can’t resist a personal story about the power of kindness and it appears neither can the LinkedIn community! Over 15,000 reactions and 823 comments so far and it’s only been out for a few days! Not bad for someone with less than 2500 followers (many of which have probably been added since this post!)
That’s all for this week.
The LinkedInformed will be the last one before the Christmas break so get your post of the week nominations in plus any suggestions for content.
This article has also been recorded as a podcast;
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3 年Mark Williams I still can’t see the bell on the LinkedIn Profiles
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3 年Ding dong, where do I find my bell Mark?
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3 年Thanks for the mention Mark Williams. At the end of the day, it is tough for LinkedIn to dictate what the actual use for follow and connect, when everyone uses it according to their own intention. Otherwise there should be a third button labeled "Connect and Pitch" or "Connect and Propose"
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3 年I'm a little frustrated with LinkedIn notifications of late. I rely heavily on this feature to make sure I see when someone has commented on my posts. But Linkedin is adding in so many irrelevant notifications. I've modified my preferences, but don't want to eliminate all of them. I wish there was a way to mark them as read without clicking through. Facebook has that feature. #linkedin should add it too.
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3 年Great Read and very interesting Mark Williams. With regards to the bell feature, I think the bookmark will still be there as this work only on a 1st-degree connection. Wish they can extend to Follow and Company page.