LinkedIn has released a heap of updates in recent months - although some were re-introductions of old functionalities which they'd removed. But either way, LinkedIn's added a wide range of tools and features, many of which have immediate, significant benefits, so it's important to keep up.
Continuing on this line, last week, LinkedIn added access to their new, post-level audience insights via desktop.
As explained by LinkedIn:
"Writing or posting something can feel a little intimidating, but knowing who your audience is can make all the difference. Now with access to audience insights from the desktop experience you can quickly glean who's seeing the posts you've shared, articles you've written, including breakdowns of your audience like their company and job title. And don't forget to try new ways to share your points of view to grow your audience - leverage multimedia (posts with images receive 94% more total views) or hashtags so your content shows up to the people that matter to you."
LinkedIn first added the new audience insights to their mobile app back in October, so it's not exactly new, but still, it's likely that more people are uploading long-form content via desktop, which could equally mean more of them are checking the stats via the same method (though worth noting, the majority of LinkedIn traffic now comes via mobile device).
As you can see, the new insights tools - which are available for both LinkedIn Publisher posts and regular updates in the feed - provide detail on who's looking at your updates, which companies they work for and where they're from, among other notes. There's also a listing of recommended content to share based on each post to help you generate more engagement within your network and make it look like you know what's up.
In addition to this, LinkedIn also recently added an automated 'suggested summary' tool which can provide you with a basic summary based on your listed career insights.
To make the profile creation process even easier, they've also now added a new automated 'suggested skills' option as well, which highlights the skills you should list based on demand from recruiters.
As noted by LinkedIn:
"Having 40 words or more on your summary ensures you show up in search results and people with at least five skills listed on their LinkedIn profile receive up to 17x more profile views."
Worth ensuring you have your details filled out.
And one last LinkedIn update of note. Well, sort of an update.
LinkedIn started working on a native video option back in August, with selected LinkedIn Influencers given access to a new Q and A style app called 'Record', enabling them to post video responses to audience questions.
At the time, LinkedIn noted that native video would start with influencers and then be rolled out to more users. And that might be close - LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner this week took the time to respond to a user question about LinkedIn video.
Of course, that doesn't necessarily mean anything - but then again, if he had nothing to add, he could have simply ignored it. Maybe we'll see LinkedIn video in the near future.
As noted, LinkedIn's been adding a heap of smaller updates and tweaks in recent months, and while none of these are ground-breaking, depending on how you use the platform, each could be significant. Worth taking note when refining your LinkedIn strategy.