Our customers are always asking us what is new in terms of social media. In my opinion, LinkedIn is currently the most important social media site to keep up with for business. The sheer power of optimizing a LinkedIn profile to be indexed by Google and to rank your name and business name as the top SEO result is unsurpassed.
From branding to optimizing for Google to utilizing for social selling and ultimately creating your profile online, I highly recommend to all of my clients that we work first on their LinkedIn profile before doing any other online strategy.
Just this month, I met with a well-established photographer who said he did not believe in “online marketing.” When we completed the exercise of Googling his name, to his shock and surprise, only obituaries appeared. Apparently, another John approximately the same age as him passed away suddenly and all the links were about the other John. If his potential customers are searching for his name or business and are currently only finding obituary results, they are most likely turning their search elsewhere. Creating a well-optimized LinkedIn profile with a personalized URL would repair this problem immediately.
To help you make the most of LinkedIn, I’ve put together a guide of all you need to know to become a LinkedIn pro this year.
What Changes Has LinkedIn Made For Users?
LinkedIn is currently the world’s biggest professional networking platform, so it’s not a major surprise that to keep things running smoothly, the company has made a few adjustments to improve its user experience. The redesign of the site comes after the upgrade of its app. The desktop tweaks are focused on making the crossover between the two platforms more similar in the hope that users will spend more time each day on the site – only 25% of the platform’s 450 million users used it monthly.
The new interface (UI) boasts an updated color scheme, a shift from black to a dark teal. The menu bar at the top of the page is slightly thinner, mirroring the mobile app. Listed below are all changes you can expect to see; any features and areas not mentioned remain as they were before the recent upgrade.
Aside from the ads on the right-hand side of the page, all the usual features are on the main page with the option to share an update, photo or article at the top of the page. What might confuse a few people, particularly any newcomers, is the “publish” option is just below that, which gives you direct access to the publishing feature.
The profile rank feature seems to have disappeared since the update; perhaps it will return in time. In the meantime, be selective and test out your results. Your profile views and headline are shown directly under your photo. The timeline is the only new feature added to the homepage and looks similar to a Facebook feed with a count of how many people have read your latest post.
Your Profile
The bedrock of LinkedIn is now accessible via the “Me” icon in the menu bar and is depicted by a tiny snapshot of your profile picture. Your photo is now circular so you might have to try a few different sizes to get a good fit. It appears that most people are doing best with dimensions in the 1800-by-300 pixel range, rather than the 1536-by-738 size LinkedIn suggests uploading.
To see more than just your summary, people now have to click the “more” button, so it’s crucial you make those first two lines count. The only real downside about the new profile section is that you can no longer reorder the different parts of your profile.
Other People’s Profiles
All the contact info for others’ profiles is now displayed on the far right-hand side along with website URLs. The options for sharing, removing, blocking, reporting, unfollowing and sending a request are all visible on the top right if you press the three little dots next to the centered profile picture.
The old “in common” feature is now called “highlights,” making it easily accessible, while just below that you see others’ posts.
My Network
When you used to click on “My Network” you were met with “Connections,” “Add Contacts,” “Alumni” and “People You May Know.” The new version takes you straight to your invitations and people you may know instead; click “see all” for the rest of your connections and keep in mind that the announcements feature has moved to your notification area. We’ve lost the “Alumni” search option, but you can get around this by searching for the school in the search bar.
Notifications
The notifications feature is new and improved, now with its own separate page; reach it by going to the top menu and clicking on the bell icon (this was previously a flag icon). This layout makes it easier to track engagement and respond, you’ll still receive all the notifications you did previously.
These changes to the platform are more cosmetic than technical and only time will tell if they enhance the site long term. For newcomers and those who don’t use the advanced features, the changes are certainly worth it. For more experienced users, it doesn’t offer much in terms of newness yet. However, it’s still early days for potentially larger changes, as Microsoft only acquired LinkedIn in December.
Post written by
Lisa Montenegro
Founder and president at Digital Marketing Experts – DMX, a premier Google partner agency located in Toronto, Canada.
Visit the Original Article Here – https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesagencycouncil/2017/02/27/linkedin-changes-that-you-need-to-know-about-this-year/#5bb67a9c7bb5