By bbr

by Kelly Lucas, client marketing director

LinkedIn has just announced on its blog that it will be rolling out a new set of updates for users to enjoy. As this is only the latest of several updates to features and functionality in the past year, including eliminating polls, adding the publishing platform and releasing their LinkedIn premium experience, it really shouldn’t be surprising that additional changes are coming down the the pike. Social media is so fluid and with the marketplace becoming more crowded and competition getting stiffer, it’s important for even the big dogs like LinkedIn to stay current, fresh and relevant.

In an interview on ReadWrite .com, LinkedIn’s Vice President of Mobile Product, Joff Redfern, says: “We broke it down into three areas we thought we could make a big difference. Helping users better monitor their professional brand; helping members stay connected with their network and streamlining the feed itself.”

One of the ways users’ feeds will be streamlined is by the shifting of content to new areas. Currently, if someone changes a job or has an anniversary or another event, this information drops into your newsfeed the same as updates and news posts. LinkedIn has now moved these announcements to the top of the right side bar in an area called “Keep In Touch.” “If something important was happening in your network, it disappeared off the newsfeed relatively quickly,” Joff continues in ReadWrite. “As friends, that information is important to me. Putting that information in its own area was super valuable for people. Now they don’t lose these important events.”

Something else that you’ll notice is that profile stats have been moved to the top of the page. Not only will you have a quick glimpse into who is viewing your profile, but also which posts are getting the most engagement. Additionally, the update text box appears a little higher than it did before, making it easier to located instead of being hidden under suggested posts. Probably one of the biggest differences is that “Jobs You May Be Interested In” is now directly in your newsfeed versus being sequestered over to the bottom of the right side bar. This is a pretty smart move on LinkedIn’s part, as having successfully filled job postings is a good thing for their bottom line.

image source: https://readwrite.com/2014/12/11/linkedin-makeover-new-homepage

LinkedIn has made these changes to their internal pages and will be rolling out these updates to users in early 2015, though no set date has been announced.

So what do you think, is this new look and functionality an improvement or will it make any difference in your daily use?