LinkedIn has recently rolled out a new LinkedIn profile 2017 look and its similarity to another social media site notwithstanding, the new layout does feel a little more streamlined for easier navigation.
What’s New: 3 Things You’ll Love
1. Home Page
LinkedIn now looks a whole lot like Facebook. This is a smart move because people know how to navigate Facebook. Now that LinkedIn allows you to navigate in pretty much the same way, there’s no need to tax your brain and learn new skills in order to familiarise yourself with how it all works. Smart UX.
A combination of real people and algorithms are now working on fine tuning your feed so that you see the most relevant posts from the people you engage with most.
2. Navigation Bar
The new navigation bar of LinkedIn allows you to navigate the site more easily, as it highlights the key features of the site.
There is also a button dedicated to redirecting you to other vital parts of LinkedIn that are most relevant to you like LinkedIn Learning, and staying true to LinkedIn’s business oriented layout, a page where you can post a job.
Did you know that Facebook is soon launching a service to allow employers advertise jobs – for free?
3. Refined Searching
The universal search box on your navigation bar is where you can search for posts, people, and more. You can even refine your search by adding some filters to the search results so that you can really find what you are looking for. This is where most people will live on LinkedIn.
What’s New: 4 Things You’ll Hate
With new gains come losses, especially when a platform is undergoing a dramatic redesign such as LinkedIn in 2017. Here are 4 major losses that people will miss from the old layout.
1. Moving Profile Sections
The new LinkedIn layout does not give you the opportunity to shift your profile sections around anymore. While we used to be able to customise the order of our profile sections to better fit what we wanted to show people, this feature is sadly not around anymore. Fingers crossed they bring it back soon.
2. So Much White Space
The profile picture is now circular and much smaller, which deviates from its previous larger square-shaped form. Normally that wouldn’t be much of an issue, but look at the amount of white space that is on top of your profile. I think it’s a waste of space and a large square profile photo would work much better here.
3. Less Visible Skills
Before the redesign, there were more skills were visible on your profile. Now you only get three displayed on your profile and the rest are hidden away under a drop down link. Even the images of the people who endorsed you have now been drastically reduced, which some say gives less of a sense of credibility.
Also, what’s with the shrinking of people’s faces LinkedIn? People like to see people, and I feel that all this is making LinkedIn feel like a much colder place. New corporate owners Microsoft making their presence marked?
4. Farewell Tagging
Here’s something that a lot of users of the free LinkedIn are going to miss: the loss of tagging. Before you were able to tag the connections on your posts, much like how it works on other social media sites. But with this latest update, LinkedIn has now removed this privilege from free users.
The shape of many things to come, I expect.
The New LinkedIn Profile: 3 Things To Update
So what’s new on LinkedIn Profiles for 2017, and how can you adjust your old profile accordingly?
1. Display Photo
First things first, your cover photo now has different dimensions, which means that your old cover photo may not be looking quite as well with the new dimensions of 1536 x 738. So time to upload a new one that will give your profile better aesthetics!
Your profile pic has also changed, is now smaller and circular. You shouldn’t have to change this one but be aware of it next time you’re getting photos done as it might influence the photography brief.
2. About Me
You’re going to have to update your profile bio because the new layout limits the visibility to just the first two lines. The rest falls under a read more button so make those first two lines relevant enough to give viewers a quick idea of who you are and what you do.
3. Post Pics
When you’re adding a pic to your posts, you will need to use these new LinkedIn post size dimensions 550×375 pixels. We had a lot of messing around recently trying to make this image fit the new size.
What do you think about the new LinkedIn profile 2017 changes?
Are you feeling the love, or left a little cold?
If you need help updating your LinkedIn profile or your LinkedIn company page get in touch. We’ll have you sporting the new spring/summer 2017 look in no time.
