Introduction To The New LinkedIn Profile
LinkedIn suddenly appear to have found their thinking caps with new updates seemingly arriving on a weekly basis! Which is GREAT news for those people who are active on LinkedIn. The latest addition to their development is the New LinkedIn Profile design.
LinkedIn have three core strategies in mind when they are redeveloping their platform:
- Simplify
- Grow
- Everyday
For anyone who has been using LinkedIn for the last few years, that word “simplify” will mean an awful lot.
LinkedIn has been full of some fantastic features, ways to showcase how good you and your business are, ways to meet new connections, and ways to share your own industry knowledge. The problem has always been that it has been so bloomin’ confusing to do so!!
With the launch of the new profile design, things could be about to become MUCH easier to edit, build and discover your profile and LinkedIn relationships.
LinkedIn have built the editing of your profile from scratch – in the past there were just so many different editing routes into your profile that it just became confusing.
Their redesign is aimed to fulfil three requirements:
- Enable Simplified Editing
- Build Relationships
- Offer Rich Insights
Enable Simplified Editing
There will now be an option to enable you to add industry or profession specific sections to your profile such as:
- Projects
- Test Scores
- Courses
- Languages
Things that until now would be tucked away in a profile summary (and simply lost in a mountain of text).
You will also be able to see how “complete” your profile is, with the 100% bar replaced with a sexier completion score that doesn’t give you a percentage, but does give you a visual – “the complete circle” and a handy completion compliment “All-Star!”
Build Relationships
One rather Google Circles-esque addition to your profile is the section showing you how you are connected to your LinkedIn network. This helps you to understand your network “reach”, as well as answering the question – What is it that you share “most” with your connections?
This could be:
- A company you are working / have worked for.
- A school, college or university you have both attended.
- Simply your location (awesome for building local relationships)
- The industries you are in
Having these additional insights will allow you to understand better the relationship you have with people, and hopefully, how you can improve on that relationship.
Offer Rich Insights
The everyday element of LinkedIn’s strategy has seen “recent activity” becoming much more prominent in the LinkedIn profile pages. All recent activity will be posted at the top of people’s profile pages.
For many, LinkedIn isn’t a “daily” visit in the same way as people use Twitter & Facebook. However by adding more rich snippets of information, and making them more prominent, it is LinkedIn’s intention to try to get more eyes on their platform more often.
What we have found with LinkedIn is that it is very much “business” information that tends to get “shared” and this can be a very powerful way of getting on to the radar of people within a particular industry.
Conclusion
We are LOVING the updated direction that LinkedIn are taking, with recent(ish) updates such as LinkedIn today, Company Page redesigns and Endorsements, we can see this becoming an ever more active social network that business owners will want to get their teeth into. Nobody on LinkedIn is here to play games, or share their family photos. It is very much about business, and is probably the best online representation of an actual business networking meeting.
The people who put the most effort into LinkedIn are the people who tend to get the most out of LinkedIn.
What are your thoughts? Please feel free to comment below.