LinkedIn Makes Some Changes

October 11, 2012 | By Ilfusion Team

In the past few weeks, the professional networking site LinkedIn made three big changes for its 175 million users.

Whether you’re on LinkedIn to network with people in your industry, look for a new opportunity or build your B2B presence, these new and improved features may prove to be very useful to you.

Here’s the scoop on the three new updates:

1. Redesigned Company Pages

A few weeks ago, LinkedIn introduced redesigned company pages to an elite few businesses, such as Dell and Hewlett-Packard. On October 4, LinkedIn rolled out the new pages for all companies.

The redesigned pages have followed the lead of Facebook and Twitter in offering a spot for a banner style image and the ability to create featured updates that can be pinned to the top of the page. Mobile LinkedIn users will be happy to know that they can now access company pages through the LinkedIn app.

2. One Click, No Writing

LinkedIn has always had a recommendations feature that allows you to request references from your connections. Ideally your former supervisors and colleagues would take a couple of minutes to write a few nice words about you. Now, connections can use the new Endorsements feature to give a thumbs up to your skills with one click.

So far, there are two schools of thought on the endorsements feature. The first is that it’s awesome to be able to give and receive recommendations with such ease. The second is that because it can be done with such ease, members will just go in and start endorsing each other willy nilly, effectively voiding any credibility. The jury is still out as to what kind of influence endorsements will have on potential employers or clients.

3. Follow Thought Leaders

Users can now follow 150 thought leaders who will share unique content and insights. Among the chosen few are Richard Branson, Tony Robbins, President Barack Obama, Deepak Chopra and Arianna Huffington.

Status updates, videos, photos and Slideshare presentations are a few of the items these influencers will share with followers. LinkedIn has indicated that it will expand the list over the next few months, so if your favorite person of influence isn’t there yet, keep checking back.

If you want more information about the new LinkedIn features, or if you want to know how you can leverage LinkedIn to create a presence and establish expertise for you or your company, please contact us.