Strategy: The Latest Round Of LinkedIn Changes: What You Need To Know…You May not have Access to all these Changes Yet, But you Will. And this is Just the Beginning

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LinkedIn recently introduced a new look and feel to your home page and profile page, as well as additional features and a new pricing plan. The latter was designed to get more people to pay more – or pay at all (since most members are on the “free plan”).

LinkedIn

This is not surprising. LinkedIn is an ever-evolving platform with new features being added seemingly every month. Most of the changes enhance what you can do and how you can use LinkedIn’s tools. Even the most fervent users of LinkedIn have a hard time keeping up with the enhancements and modifications.

For more on the pricing plan, read this recent articleby fellow Forbes contributor George Anders. To help you navigate the recent feature changes, I’ve developed the following quick guide, with an emphasis on how you can make the most of these changes to enhance your personal brand.

But first, here are a few things you need to know:

–       LinkedIn is a business, and its leaders are always seeking ways to maximize their bottom line. Changes are ultimately designed to increase revenue. Most users don’t need to pay for LinkedIn services. Your presence and engagement translate into value for LinkedIn.

–       LinkedIn has been in the fast lane, moving from an online website and virtual networking tool to a comprehensive career management and personal branding platform. But unlike a lot of online platforms, new features do not roll out to everyone at the same time.

–       There are often different ways to accomplish one task in LinkedIn and different features you can access from your home page and your profile page (click on your face in the upper right corner to get from your home page to your profile page). Find the approach that works for you and stick with it.

The best way to maximize LinkedIn is to stay up on its latest developments by reading posts like this and trying things out to see what provides you the greatest value.

 

Overall, I think the new home page design is greatly improved and the other recent enhancements make it a more valuable tool. To help you maximize the latest features, I’ve divided these into three aspects of branding: Building Your Personal Brand, Building and Nurturing Your Network and Measuring Your Success:

Building Your Personal Brand

Adding Media

Being able to add media to your profile – documents, videos, presentations – isn’t new, but the recent changes make multimedia enhancements even more valuable to you. When you add media now, you can indicate where you would like it to appear by selecting a specific section. LinkedIn has also increased the number of providers from whom you can embed media. The complete list, now topping 300, is here.

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Share An Activity Update

This feature works the same as it did but has been renamed “What’s On Your Mind.” I’m not sure why this change was made. Perhaps they’re hoping that a question will spur more people to provide more updates.

Blogging

Using the LinkedIn long-form blogging platform is great for personal branding. You can share your thought leadership with a potential 330+ million people. And recent changes have made it even more valuable. Now, published posts are highlighted in individual search results. So if you aspire to be visible to people who are making decisions about you, and you want to be seen as a thought leader in your field, start using the long-form publishing feature in your profile!

SlideShare

There is now a direct link to SlideShare from your profile page. Under the Interests tab, SlideShare has been added to Companies, Groups, Pulse and Education. As you may know, LinkedIn bought SlideShare in 2012.

Building and Nurturing Your Network

You Recently Visited

Not all of the changes included additions. The You Recently Visited feature, which used to appear along the right side of your home page, has been removed. Personally, I think this is a loss of a great feature.  I liked being reminded of the profiles I checked out.

Stay in Touch

LinkedIn has made it easier to stay connected to your network members. The new Keep in Touch box – which you’ll find in the top right of the homepage – organizes your connections’ updates (including birthdays, profile changes, new jobs/promotions, anniversaries and mentions in the news) and gives you the option to comment, like or skip the update. This provides similar functionality to the LinkedIn Connected app. Your connections’ new roles – which used to appear in your feed – are no longer shown there.

People You May Know

This feature annoyed some – me for one – and it has been given less prominence in the redesign. That’s good news. People You May Know are shown after you go through your list of connections who have updates (see “Stay in Touch” above). But just to make sure you see it, they have added “People You May Know” to your activity feed as well. And you are still fed People You May Know after you accept a LinkedIn request. LinkedIn is going all out to make sure you add connections.

Searching

Free searches are now limited by a monthly cap – with the goal of driving more people to the premium versions. There is a work-around that will make it unnecessary for most people to subscribe for a premium version. After you have used your monthly limit of searches, switch from LinkedIn to Google for your sleuthing. If you are looking to find Marketing Directors at IBM, for example, type this into the Google Search window: IBM “marketing director” site:https://Linkedin.com/pub/ If you are in sales, however, the premium version and its search capabilities are a necessary investment.

Measuring Your Success

Immediate Stats

Right at the top of your profile page, LinkedIn posts your stats so you can see how you are doing. It’s a great way to measure your brand impact. In addition to showing how many people have viewed your profile (you can click on it to get all the details, just like before), you can see how many people viewed your latest update (now called  “What’s on Your Mind”).

The Only Constant is Change

As I said earlier in the post, you may not have access to all these changes yet, but you will. And this is just the beginning. LinkedIn will continue to enhance and change the platform, so stayed tuned.

Follow me on Twitter and check out my latest book, Ditch. Dare. Do! 3D Personal Branding for Executives.

Forbes.com | March 11, 2015 | William Arruda