LinkedIn is doing everything it can to keep people engaged and spending more time on the platform. A slew of new features are designed to attract and reward creators of original content. Here are some of the most interesting.
You may have noticed LinkedIn broadening its reactions, to be more in line with other networks, and to reflect the more personal conversations happening on the platform.
There are now seven reaction options, including ‘funny’:
For now, however, there are no negative reaction options – LinkedIn is still focusing on positive content.
It’s also increasing the options to share others’ content. Users can repost a LinkedIn post as it is (rather than needing to repost it with a comment), which should increase reach and engagement.
One change that will be especially useful for brands is the ability to comment and react from an official page as you would a personal page – this should help with brand page visibility.
A shift in focus from pure networking to content creation and engagement
LinkedIn’s ‘creator mode’ is designed for people who regularly post LinkedIn articles or newsletters. Its latest figures say that over 10 million people are using creator mode, which is staggering growth from the 5.5 million people on creator mode in March 2022.
If you switch to creator mode (which anyone can do), you’ll see some changes to your profile. People now follow your page, rather than connect to you. LinkedIn displays the number of followers on your page; you can add up to five hashtags under your profile headline; and your featured content and activity is given more prominence on your page.
LinkedIn has also launched other features to support creators:
- Supporting community building. Audio Events (LinkedIn’s answer to Clubhouse and Twitter Spaces) is now available to all creators. You can schedule and share events in advance and use the rooms in conjunction with LinkedInLIVE and Newsletters. Video-based live events are also in the planning stage.
- Helping creators showcase their skills. LinkedIn now lets creators add a link to the top of their profile page that lets them direct people to another site – such as a portfolio.
- Expanding creators’ audiences. Creators can now embed a link to their LinkedIn profile in websites, blogs and emails in a more visually appealing way. The platform will recommend creators to follow when people search for topics or companies on LinkedIn, and it adds ‘follow’ buttons to general search results to make it easier for people to find and follow thought leaders. Anyone who sends a creator a connection request will automatically be added as a follower.
LinkedIn has admitted that a drawback of creator mode is that it reduces connection requests, so people with 3000 connections or fewer should probably not switch (as connections, it says, would be more important to them).
But this is really a personal preference. If you’re on LinkedIn to generate new business or network in a traditional way for your future career, then maybe a traditional profile is still your best bet.
However, if you’re a creative or a specialist, maybe you want to focus more on people seeing your work and ideas rather than making a lot of connections.
