Changes To LinkedIn: Network For Professionals Gets A Facelift

If you’ve signed into your LinkedIn account recently, you will have noticed a lot of new changes to LinkedIn. Although the leading business social network has had minor changes in the past, these tweaks are immediately noticeable.

Changes To LinkedIn Profile

1. Bigger profile picture
2. Number of recommendations is no longer shown at the top of the profile
3. Website links, Twitter ID and email is now in “Contact Info”

Although I really like most of the changes, there are two changes to LinkedIn that I really feel were not to the advantage of users of the platform. The first one is have websites hidden in Contact Info as this makes it a little more challenging to gain web traffic from your LinkedIn profile directly to your website.

The second one is to not clearly display the number of recommendations from the top section of the profile. This was a key part of displaying compelling evidence of social proof and is only able to be viewed by scrolling further down your profile.

Despite this downside, the changes to LinkedIn definitely feels like an upgrade and gives your LinkedIn profile a much cleaner and more professional look that matches the recent changes to the entire site theme.

Notifications

All I can say is FINALLY! Since every other social network has some simple form of showing you notifications, it always puzzled me as to why LinkedIn had yet to incorporate one of their own. This should easily be one of the more welcome changes to LinkedIn for this update cycle.

You will now get a handy real-time notification every time:

1. Someone likes what you’ve shared on LinkedIn
2. Views your profile
3. Accepts your invitation
4. New inMails and more

Since email was the only way to receive notifications previous to this update, those who prefer to keep the traffic to their inbox down to a minimum will praise LinkedIn for this change.

Changes To LinkedIn Company Pages

This is still on a limited roll out but LinkedIn company pages are getting a well deserved facelift and I’ll be the first to say it’s looking mighty fine. A few special companies such as Dell, Philips, Citi and HP have had early access since this week.

1. Cleaner, more attractive layout and design
2. Better exposure for company updates
3. Bigger main page photo (a design reminiscent of Facebook Timeline)
4. Better exposure for products and services (in right sidebar)

Given the fact that company pages has been a fairly neglected feature, all these changes are very welcome and show a positive future for promoting brands on LinkedIn.

There’s a good chance your company page hasn’t shifted over just yet but make sure you keep your eyes peeled for the changes to roll out very soon.

What do you think of the recent changes to LinkedIn? Love it or hate it, we want to hear about it! Leave a message in the comments below.

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