So Much Change

In every area of our lives. LinkedIn is no exception

The Push for Premium

I have not seen a year with this much change on LinkedIn in 12 years. 150+ changes since the beginning of the year. Enough to make you dizzy. Because, yes, they do go back and forth on things.

LinkedIn does not understand themselves, the platform, or their best members and how they use the platform.

For 22 years they have been struggling to monetize the platform. Now they are trying to force everyone to premium. How rude.

They have missed some major ways to monetize it that actually made sense. Those windows are closed.

The first time I heard from a client that he could only send 5 personized invitations month, I was horrified and in denial.

At the beginning of the year, that was 400+. For a networking platform, that wants you to have a reason to connect, that seems terribly mercenary.

It makes no sense to me. Yet, here we are.

If I go to a networking meeting, I may send 5 - 6 personalized invitations in the morning.

And so, people that are actively building their businesses are signing up for premium. LinkedIn has been stripping features from the lower tiers of Premium for years. They want you to purchase Sales Navigator.

I don't want to see LinkedIn become some elitist platform. Where you HAVE to pay to play. Time for disruption.

Algorithms Hit Bottom

The last 2 weeks of June, content performance hit rock bottom. It tanked. Everyone felt it. I have 1 client it didn't really affect, but everyone else? Disaster.

I think they are doing a reset. Or, they are messing with organic reach.

There are 2 times of year LinkedIn thinks we aren't paying attention, so they initiate major change. The week between Christmas and New Years, and the beginning of summer break. Sometimes September, too.

Sneaky. Devious?

The algorithms are slowly coming back. Don't panic yet.

A New Way to Score Points with the Algorithms

If you "save" someone's post, they get a nice bump in the algorithms. I save posts all the time - to use as examples, ideas... I have not yet found a way to determine if anyone has saved my posts.

The screenshot below shows how to save a post. Click on the ellipses in the upper right corner to access the dropdown list. Click save.

Notifications have increased

I recommend everyone go into their setting at least once a year and make the right choices for you. None of us need to be spammed by LinkedIn. Nor, do we want to miss the things that drive business.

The screenshot below is a weekly notification. It includes every post that anyone has looked at. For example, I did not post at all one week. Nothing. And, I still had 1,000+ impressions.

This is the beauty and the power of a content strategy. Even when you don't post, your existing content is working hard for you.

Do check on the Analytics. Make sure you are hitting the right audience. If you want guidance for that, get on my calendar. The "secret" analytics are powerful. They can tell you all kinds of things.

Company Page Messaging is being rolled out

I can't see this being very useful for Entrepreneurs. But for even small companies that post consistently to their Company Page, this could be huge. But, you need someone to monitor it and take point responding.

You may noticed the new "Catch Up" under the "My Network" tab LinkedIn has repositioned how we access work anniversaries, job changes... You can give a thumbs up or write a message right there.

I've heard a lot of disgruntlement about this change. I just roll with all of it. They'll change it again next week. I don't have the energy to be annoyed by it.

And finally, a word about Search on LinkedIn

Honestly? I freaked out when they got rid of hashtags. I was extremely skeptically about how that would work.

I'm a big fan. The new Search functions are about 10X more powerful than before.

Here's one of the reasons I freaked out.

Have you ever been to a conference and you want to look at everyone's photos and posts from the event?

Conferences have their own hashtag. #ComicCon2024 I was working with a client and he wanted to find all the photos with him in them from an event.

We just did a word search for the event and found them all. No junk and irrelevant, random posts. Pure gold from that event.

Searching on hashtags is such a mixed bag. 20% of them might be accurate.

LinkedIn has some magical Search thing going on right now. I did a Google search today for something. The first 2 pages where all on LinkedIn.

This won't last. But - the only Search that is working - even on Google is LinkedIn Optimization.

Ride the wave now. Google Search is all but dead. Something new will emerge. Until then, LinkedIn is as good as it gets.

With 150+ changes to choose from, this is nothing. I just picked out what I thought might be worth mentioning to you.

I hope you had a fabulous Fourth!

until next time...

Angela

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