New (new) Profiles!!!

Welcome to episode 202, this week I don’t really have one main subject to cover but I guess the most eye grabbing headline is that LinkedIn have decided to re-design profiles….again! More of that later but to start with as usual….

Interesting Stuff I Saw This Week

The Bible of LinkedIn Bollocks LinkedIn Top Companies To Work For - UK LinkedIn Top Companies To Work For - US LinkedIn Top Companies To Work For - Canada LinkedIn Top Companies To Work For - Australia How we created the 2018 LinkedIn Top Companies list

LinkedIn Updates

New Profile Design

About a year ago, most people were seeing the new design for the first time, The basic (free) version of LinkedIn had a complete makeover including a new design for profiles…..and now they have decided the re-design profiles again!!

Firstly let me make it clear that these new profiles are in the early stage of roll-out so very few of you will see this. I also don’t have this new design, the above screenshot was sent to me by my good friend and fellow LinkedIn Trainer Angus Grady.

Please Note: Roll out of new features is per account, not per profile. You might think this is the same but it isn’t. Angus’ LinkedIn account is part of the early roll-out, not his profile. When I view his profile, it has the picture in the centre but when he views it (or any other) he sees the new design with the picture on the left.

Also please note: Another misconception about new features is that there rollout is based on geography…it is not! The amount of times someone states “we don’t have it yet here in X” drives me crazy! Roll-out isn’t random but your account was allocated into a cohort when you signed up, this group is still continually added to as new members sign up. I’m not sure how many cohorts there are but they are not based on location, premium or when you signed up. They allow LinkedIn to test new features in a random way.

Because I don’t have this yet, I haven’t been able to test if the links and features are different or whether it’s purely a cosmetic change.

One thing is for sure, there are plenty of people out there who are going to have to change their background image!

So what do you think of the change of design? I must admit it does look better, that said I think Linkedin have far more urgent priorities than making profiles look prettier!

Multiple Image Posts on Desktop

An image post made of up to 9 images has been a feature of the LinkedIn mobile app for sometime but recently LinkedIn quietly made it possible on Desktop, this is great news for company page admins who are not able to mange their page via mobile.

To add images via a PC simply use the ctrl+click or cmd+click on Mac to select multiple images (or the click+shift feature for a complete line of files).

Video Filters

LinkedIn Video: Stand Out with Filters and Text

Ok, maybe it’s just me but those filters just look ridiculous! They remind me of the equally ugly emojis in Messages that no-one uses! That said, the ability to add text is useful and actually works pretty well. I won’t be using this feature but mainly because I recommend recording your video on the Clips or Clipomatic apps. They both provide much better filters, text and editing options.

Is LinkedIn Deliberately ‘throttling’ post distribution?

Er…no! I have heard and seen a fair bit of chatter about this, instigated mainly by Josh Fechter announcing that LinkedIn had reduced his post views by 90%.

He followed that up with this article LinkedIn Wants to Put an End to Broetry in Favor of This

The thing is, I don’t believe ‘Broetry’ was ever a reason why he got high numbers in the first place.

All that matters in a post is that it’s more than 3 lines long, this will ensure it triggers the ‘See more’ and if people click on that, the algorithm will automatically push the post out to more people.

It doesn’t matter if it’s easy to read or a big, ugly block of text. If the first 3 lines are enough to tempt me to click or tap on ‘see more’ it will get more views.

As far as Josh is concerned, his numbers are still amazing so I don’t really know what his is complaining about. I very much doubt this is a conspiracy to ‘throttle’ posts but merely a consequence of more people posting interesting and engaging content.

The algorithm has to limit the amount of content in our feed or it would be unmanageable so a reduction in views is inevitable....the same thing happened with Articles.

This is simply a consequence of success, if you get high views and engagement, other will copy and as they get higher views, your will go down. That’s all there is to it….no conspiracy!

 

Posting Statistics

A listener Mark Lee decided to conduct his own experiment on the success of his posts on LinkedIn and he has been generous enough to share the numbers and conclusions with me.

Mark’s target audience is Accountants and small Accountancy firms

The analysis goes back to the start of December, initially he was posting links to his or other Blogs via IFTTT, this was soon halted in favour of long, text only posts.

His conclusions are as follows; Posts with genuine questions attract more views and Likes Comments are the most important thing to aim for There appears to be no relation between early success (first 2 hours) and eventual numbers There is some evidence of a cumulative effect, the average numbers increased over time.

My observations Controversy creates engagement True stories work Questions are critical Very few of Mark posts were images so it would be wrong to conclude that image posts don’t deliver results