Sandra Long

Hello Friends,โ€‹

I hope you are having a wonderful winter. I love this time of year and am hoping to see more snow before spring arrives. My professional life has been very busy and fulfilling. I have had a very busy start to the year with several new clients.

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So let's get rolling into the new LinkedIn features for โค๏ธ February.

 


 

LinkedIn Updates – February 2024

 

For Premium Members:

๐Ÿ‘‰ Premium members will get help writing an introductory message to a new contact. You will see a draft based on information from a profile. I do love the idea, but highly skeptical if the AI will be able to do this adequately.

๐Ÿ‘‰ Premium members will also have access to "takeaways" which are AI summaries or insights about a particular post.

 

For Creators:

โ€‹๐Ÿ‘‰ LinkedIn announced that they will stop supporting and recommending hashtags. They will still be available but not prioritized. This is unfortunate news.

โ€‹๐Ÿ‘‰ Creator Mode is also going away. The toggle button we had in the resources part of our profile will be removed. Good news and bad news. The good news is that everyone will get the Creator mode features. Now you will be able to select either "Follow" or "Connect" as your default. The other big implication is profile positioning. The About Section will move up higher for those of us who had Creator Mode turned on. Now's the time to update your essay.

โ€‹โžก๏ธ โžก๏ธ Check out my first post AND then my article and a brief video about this big creator change.

โ€‹๐Ÿ‘‰ Related to the Creator mode change, the "Talks about" Hashtags will be removed. I liked that aspect of Creator Mode so it will be missed.

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Interesting for all:

๐Ÿ‘‰ For Freelancers and Service Providers: Now is the time to update this important section of your profile. The Services page will become more important in your profile. Even though it moves down a bit, the box is expanded and the media and reviews will be more visible. Premium users will have media thumbnail options. This feature was originally known at ProFinder and I was on the Beta team. (So many changes to this over the years)

๐Ÿ‘‰ Profile verification is expanding to 16 more countries. This is great news.

๐Ÿ‘‰ The "People Also Viewed" feature is going away. ......"Other Similar Profiles" will be taking its place and I am not pleased. We had control over the PAV feature and could hide it. Not so with the new arrangement. So yes, other people's profiles will be displayed on the right side of YOUR profile now, and you can't shut it off. Disappointing.

๐Ÿ‘‰ Take your profile photo directly from your desktop or laptop now. Previously, this was only available on the mobile app.

๐Ÿ‘‰ Reordering skills by priority always makes sense. We can now do this in the other profile sections where skills are a fairly new addition. Here's my post about skills.โ€‹

๐Ÿ‘‰ Expect messaging within groups to be limited to 10 per month. Sorry to see this but it is an underused capability.

๐Ÿ‘‰ Messaging is redesigned. Check out these box options โฌ‡๏ธ and look for more changes to come in the near future.

๐Ÿ‘‰ The networking tab is being updated with AI functionality. Look for Grow and Catch Up tabs. The Grow tab helps you find new relevant connections by leveraging AI. The Catch Up tab prompts you to reconnect based on job changes, work anniversaries, new hires, or birthdays. Sounds like a replacement for the Celebrations tab which I have enjoyed.

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February โค๏ธ Gratitude and Advice Corner:

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๐Ÿ‘‰ We did Sales Navigator training on Valentine's Day and here is the postโ€‹

๐Ÿ‘‰ I got a chance to try Improv in Boston with the NSA Speakers group. What a blast. I also learned so much. Here is my post.โ€‹

๐Ÿ‘‰ February is Black History Month. It's a time to appreciate accomplishments and raise important voices. I was honored to be a guest panelist on a Black History Month webinar for a popular NY and CT bank. This happened on Feb. 20. We talked about using LinkedIn to share employees' commitment to diversity on profiles and in posts. It was also a time to remind employees about the opportunity to be part of the bank brand on LinkedIn. The other panelists were super interesting and great to work with.

๐Ÿ‘‰ Speaker friends......Here's my post about live or virtual speaking events.

๐Ÿ‘‰ My client Greg inspired me to write this post. I love the comments that people made about Greg.

๐Ÿ‘‰ Wondering how to save time โฐ on LinkedIn? Check out my advice.

๐Ÿ‘‰ Gratitude for the entrepreneurial group NBB. I did a training about profiles and pages. Post

 

 ๐Ÿ“˜. Book Information

Thank you โค๏ธ to all my readers.

I love hearing from people around the ๐ŸŒŽ world. A recent reader from India ๐Ÿ‡ฎ๐Ÿ‡ณ sent me such a lovely note via LinkedIn. I am so glad that my book impacted him that way.

Mini book trailer

 

Where to order:

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๐Ÿ‡บ๐Ÿ‡ธ USA Amazon.comโ€‹

๐Ÿ‡จ๐Ÿ‡ฆ Canada Amazon.caโ€‹

๐Ÿ‡ฌ๐Ÿ‡ง UK Amazon.co.ukโ€‹

๐Ÿ‡ฆ๐Ÿ‡บ Australia Amazon.com.auโ€‹

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My New Book - On the Way

I am still working on my new LinkedIn Profile book. It is taking me longer than I expected. Please look for upcoming announcements. Some of you have agreed to be on my reader team, and I appreciate you so much. You are really important to me.

Want to help me out as an advance reader? There is still time โฐ so just Let me know here.โ€‹

FYI - The new book is NOT a replacement for LinkedIn For Personal Branding. It's more complimentary.

I wish you all a beautiful few days of February and the beginning of March.

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Warmest wishes,

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Sandra

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PS Please feel free to reply to this email if I can assist you with LinkedIn.

 

 

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