2012 was a crucial year for LinkedIn. No, there was no turmoil, rather saturation. Users were becoming less interactive on this platform. Hackers took full advantage of this and hacked passwords. On its official blog, LinkedIn admitted member passwords were compromised.
It's all in the past now, but I've still pointed it out because LinkedIn has made a comeback. Users are again frequenting it with the hope of finding a dream job and giving a boost to their careers. That's good! Every platform needs to update itself, so it gets up to the speed quickly.
The new LinkedIn
By the way, have you found any difference between the erstwhile LinkedIn interface and the new one? I did. The fact that LinkedIn has worked a lot on the news feed didn't escape my eyes. Earlier, the news feed wasn't that happening. Updates used to roll in, but users were not interested to check them.
But now, the updates are triggering a decent level of engagement. The news feed resembles Facebook, but not fully. Facebook displays a thumbnail sized preview of the image. But on LinkedIn, the preview image size is larger. Changes such as these are to and fro in the new interface.
The changes provide us with new ways to harness the professional network. Let's take a look below.
Sharing useful content
People in your contact list can see whatever you are sharing, liking and commenting on. On their newsfeeds, they see an image, a title and a short volume of text. You might be wondering whether you should share your own blog posts or a third-party blog post.
Here's the answer; if you want traffic from LinkedIn to your blog, then share your own posts. But if you just want to highlight your profile, then don't discriminate, share any post that you find relevant. The only thing that you need to bear in mind is that the content shared by you should be useful.
For the same reason, don't like or comment on something that's off-topic. Only engage yourself with posts that consist of professional relevance for you and for other users.
Publish a post
Publishing a post is incredibly easy. You don't need any software or any special tool. All you have to do is click on "Publish a post" on the extreme right side of your homepage. Once you click on it, you'd be taken to a page with a text editor. A previous exposure to Wordpress can help you immensely as the screenshot below looks similar to the Wordpress admin dashboard:
This is how the publishing dashboard on LinkedIn looks like. It comes with an advantage; you can define the H1 and H2 texts easily by some clicks. Don't forget to add an image. To add images, you need to click on the circle in the screenshot below:
That's not all. If you are facing a writer's block, LinkedIn has a solution for you. On the left navigation, you'll find writing ideas lined up. Here's the visual:
I've already published a post on LinkedIn and more are in the pipeline. People in my contact list are publishing their posts too, and that's motivating me. Being a writer myself (apart from a designer), I salute LinkedIn for this feature.
Right place, right time
You are not John Mclane; you prefer to be in the right place, and at the right time. LinkedIn is the right place, but what's the right time? The right time is the professional hours. Haha...now that's a new term isn't it? I just coined it and put it in bold to convey its uniqueness.
Professional hours are the standard business hours between 9 am and 5 pm. Surveys have found LinkedIn users to be most active during these hours. An article by John Mitchell explained why we should publish posts towards the end of the day, from 5 pm to 6 pm.
LinkedIn doesn't admit there's a specific time suitable for posting. But common sense tells us there is. Kevin Lee cited scores of data and stat figures to articulate why one should avoid posting on evenings and late-afternoons. Each social media expert has his say when it comes to the best time to post. Listen to all of them only to draft your customized strategy for posting because there has to be a personalized strategy at work.
Look for more
It's time to wrap up. I hope the ideas shared in this article are of help. My previous article was on lead generation, written from a strictly business point of view. But this one is not for any selected segment, it's for all LinkedIn users.
I'm sure LinkedIn will continue to hold out new features. Always keep your vigil eyes open for them as they might compel you to change your existing strategies.