The changes keep coming out of LinkedIn headquarters. On the heels of an announcement about new company pages (not to mention a recent design overhaul of the homepage), LinkedIn has unveiled a new look for personal profiles.
The streamlined design is touted as offering “a better way to connect and build relationships,” according to LinkedIn. The components are the same, but profiles are organized in a cleaner, more visual layout, which puts the emphasis on content and connections. For a company like ours, who regularly works with clients on LinkedIn training focused on using the social networking site for new business development, an emphasis on leads and content only makes sense.
The new profile page just doesn’t come with a visual makeover—it offers increased functionality, too, including editing tools, network insights and features that enable easier connections.
In the new sidebar (pictured above), for example, you’ll see a breakdown of information about your network, including the number of your connections that work at various companies. In staying consistent with the original profile design, you can see other profiles that people have viewed, giving you a better idea of how you relate with your LinkedIn network in terms of background, interests and skills.
The new profiles are in the process of being rolled out. If you want access now (we’re impatient, too), you can sign up for an invitation.
We’re looking forward to exploring more of the new profile functionality once we get an invite. At first glance, however, this appears to be a smart move on LinkedIn’s part—the new look is certainly more eye-catching and simplified, and in an online world that’s becoming increasingly cluttered and noisy, a concise, streamlined message is likely to have a greater overall impact—which is exactly the motivation behind the larger movement (dubbed Project Katy, after Katy Perry) that’s fueled these recent LinkedIn changes.
“If you look at the average user today, she’s getting a lot more sophisticated, she’s using a lot more tools both for productivity and entertainment,” says Deep Nishar, senior VP of products and user experience. “At some level, we are becoming generation ADD, so we don’t have that much time to focus and spend on things…. At the end of the day, if we have fewer things across which to make decisions, we end up making choices and taking action.”
Interesting stuff. And in the fast-moving digital world, it only makes sense that companies like LinkedIn are focused on what users want and need—and developing their platforms accordingly.
One thing’s for sure, we like this a whole lot more than we like the LinkedIn endorsements that are trending toward the uber spammy.
Anybody have access to the new profiles yet? And whether you do or not, what do you think of the changes?
Images via LinkedIn
Shelly Kramer is a Principal Analyst and Founding Partner at Futurum Research. A serial entrepreneur with a technology centric focus, she has worked alongside some of the world’s largest brands to embrace disruption and spur innovation, understand and address the realities of the connected customer, and help navigate the process of digital transformation. She brings 20 years’ experience as a brand strategist to her work at Futurum, and has deep experience helping global companies with marketing challenges, GTM strategies, messaging develoment, and driving strategy and digital transformation for B2B brands across multiple verticals. Shelly’s coverage areas include Collaboration/CX/SaaS, platforms, ESG, and Cybersecurity, as well as topics and trends related to the Future of Work, the transformation of the workplace and how people and technology are driving that transformation. A transplanted New Yorker, she has learned to love life in the Midwest, and has firsthand experience that some of the most innovative minds and most successful companies in the world also happen to live in “flyover country.”
