LinkedIn Contacts Gets An Update & Removes Features
Fall often signals a time of change and it seems that is more than apparent with some new LinkedIn changes that have been brewing recently. I’m certain that this will be looked back on as the “year of LinkedIn changes” with the extensive list of updates and tweaks that have been released during 2013.
Some of you may have noticed the changes to the LinkedIn Contacts page that recently occurred. These changes were unexpected with the recent overhaul to the page just this past spring. Although they appear largely esthetic or navigation related, a few features have been removed.
Whether or not these latest tweaks to LinkedIn Contacts will benefit your experience largely depends on how familiar you were with using it before the change, your workflow and personal sense of esthetics.
LinkedIn’s “Your Day”
One of the first LinkedIn changes you will notice is what used to be called the Your Day section at the top of the Contacts page. The old sliding banner has been removed and replaced with individual contact boxes. These large boxes include more information about the highlighted contact. You can take advantage of the notification to connect with them or click “Skip” to remove them. The ability to navigate directly to these updates has also removed, along with the side navigation menu.
Filter By
One of the LinkedIn changes that will likely have the greatest effect on you is the removal of the left-hand side navigation menu. This has been replaced with a less visible navigation system located just above your contacts under Filter By. The drop down menu still allows you to access all of the same filtering features as the old menu, but it has removed much of the functionality of several of the options, including Company, Location and Title.
Filter By Location
The new filtering by Location is much less useful than the old Locations tab, which used to include the full list of all the locations where you had connections. The new filter only lists your top 5 locations in the drop down menu and requires you to “search” for a list in any other location.
While perhaps not the most useful feature, the map that used to be located at the top of Locations has been removed. I will personally miss the fascinating visual look that it provided to display where my contacts were located.
Filtering By Title or Company
Similar to locations, the Title and Company filtering options no longer takes you to a nice page where you can view the entire list. The new dropdown menu lists the top 5 of each and then requires you to search for the rest.
Filtering By Tags
Tags can be such a vital part of any good LinkedIn or social selling campaign. Thankfully, it appears that only the navigation has changed. LinkedIn tags otherwise seem to be fully intact and are not missing any of the previously available functionality.
Sort By
The Sort By feature is now located on the top left side of the page and allows you to search for Recently Added, Alphabetical and Newly Added. Previously, the old sorting feature also used to include Company, Location and Lost Touch. These extra sorting options may not have been used frequently by most but they were very useful for people with large networks.
I hope this brings you up to speed on the latest LinkedIn changes so that you can focus on running a successful LinkedIn campaign rather than keeping up with seemingly never-ending changes.
Have you noticed any other changes with LinkedIn Contacts that I missed? What do you think of these latest changes? Let us know in the comments below.
