LinkedIn 2021 Year End Round Up

Happy New Year Folks!

There were a LOT of changes on LinkedIn in 2021 so I thought I would give you a detailed round-up to date.

You may want to print off this blog.  Stick the kettle on, grab a cuppa and let’s go!

January 2021

Products Tab:

Back in January a new products tab for company pages rolled out to showcase products with endorsements and testimonials. Each product can have a custom call to action button and can include videos, product screenshots, descriptions, and more.

The products that can be listed will initially be curated ‘based on existing data from both your company website and the LinkedIn platform’.

Businesses can submit change requests if required. Only specified products can be displayed ‘Product Pages are reserved for tangible product offerings to the market. Products typically have a manufacturer, a trademarked brand name, and a name used consistently on product pages and the web in reference to that product, along with other attributes such as description and logo.’

February 2021

LinkedIn Usage Stats:

• Professionals are signing up to LinkedIn at a rate of 3 new members per second.
• There are 2.9 million groups on LinkedIn.*
• LinkedIn Live Streams have increased by 89% since March 2020.
• According to a LinkedIn report, digital marketing, digital content freelancing and creative freelancing are among the UK’s fastest-growing job sectors.

You can now choose which groups of people can comment on a post. Anyone / Connections Only or nobody. LinkedIn suggests that you will see more posts from people you follow and engage with.

*If you’re a female entrepreneur join my group ‘Networking Tips with My Super Connector’

March 2021

Company Pages:

New tools started rolling out for company pages.

• My Company tab – co-workers can see company updates and you can curate content for them to share.

• Products – a product tab will allow you to create listings of products and services along with reviews and lead generation forms.

April 2021

Personal Profile Updates:

• You can add a video to your cover banner to introduce yourself. If you use this option, an orange ring will appear around your profile photo and your video will auto-play within your photo frame.
• An optional field at the top of the profile (next to your name) allows you to add your gender pronouns.
• Creator Mode – if you create loads of content you can turn on creator mode which will more prominently display your content and will encourage others to follow you (rather than connect). You can add 5 hashtags to indicate what topics you post about the most. It will move your Featured and Activity sections to the top of your Profile to more prominently display your content.
• LinkedIn Live Broadcaster – if you use Live broadcast, your profile background will show your Live broadcast when you start streaming.

May 2021

Job Roles

LinkedIn has added new job titles to help address career gaps including:

• Stay at home mum, dad or parent

If you use a ‘stay at home’ option and set the employment type field to ‘self-employed’, you won’t have to specify a company or employer.

Other options are expected to be added including ‘parental leave’, ‘family care’, ‘sabbatical’ as a way of showing employment gaps.

Search

A new search ‘experience’ is going to be rolled out on LinkedIn.

• Results will be organised by people, jobs, groups, courses, companies, posts and more.
• Additional filters will be available on all platforms on the search results.
• Results will be more personalised and include new cards showing recent activity.

Product Pages – Every product page on LinkedIn now has access to Lead Generation Forms to help conversions. Product pages will be listed when a user searches for companies and products and will be indexed by search engines.

June 2021

Service page

A new service is rolling out to some individuals to allow them to add more information about the services provided. You can add a 500 character About section. This is displayed when a user clicks “See all details”.

LinkedIn say services will be searchable on the new Services Site (currently only searchable by US locations) and reviews and ratings will be added later. You will be able to ask up to 20 first level contacts to provide reviews for a service.

Boost – You can now boost a post from your LinkedIn page to reach a greater audience (paid option). It is recommended this is used on posts receiving lots of engagement.

Event Ads – Event ads promote events in the news feed by highlight event details (date, time, registration link).

Event Analytics – The event analytics tool shows reach, engagement, and types of companies of event attendees.

Custom Streaming – You can now live stream using Zoom, WebEx, OBS (and to come, Microsoft Teams).

Mobile Page Analytics – Visitor, Follower, and Content insights for a page are now available on the mobile app.

July 2021

Jobs – LinkedIn are trying to improve the quality of job listings by:

• Only showing active listings from 3rd party sites.
• Removing jobs in violation of their terms and conditions.
• Adding ways to report jobs that are invalid.

August 2021

Company Pages

When you go to a company page as an admin, you can now filter by:

• Posts from others using the company community hashtags you have set which will make it easier to engage with.
• Posts from employees
• Page posts
• Ads

September 2021

Services Listings

If you have a service listing on your profile, a change is rolling out (on desktop) to include reviews of a service provider. You can manage reviews by accessing your service page. When the functionality is rolled out, you will be able to request reviews from past clients. You will be given 20 credits to use to request – presumably credits will be returned if a client completes a review. I will learn more about this in January and post my findings!

LinkedIn posts can now be 3000 characters as opposed to 2000 characters.

LinkedIn Stories are being suspended from 30th September while they are redesigned.

October 2021

Dark Mode

Dark mode will be coming to LinkedIn over the coming weeks. You can switch to Dark mode using Me > Settings & Privacy > Account Preferences > Display > Dark Mode.

Long form blog posts are now available for company pages. LinkedIn will provide detailed audience insights on people reading and commenting on the posts.

LinkedIn Live

Live is now available for pages with 150 followers (or profiles with 150 connections).

November 2021

Events

A number of changes are rolling out to LinkedIn events:

• From 15th October, you will not be able to “go live” to attendees only – if you “go live” in an event, you will be seen by all.
• From 1st November, all events will be fully public – you won’t be able to create private events.

Services

The services section of individual LinkedIn profiles is expanding to allow clients to submit a proposal request to a provider even if they are not connected. Service providers will be able to see a list of all client review requests and any proposals requested.

The services on a provider’s service page will display on the feeds on their network and will be discoverable in LinkedIn search (depending on public profile visibility settings).

Job Search

Job search & ‘open to work’ functions will include work settings of ‘remote’, ‘hybrid’ and ‘on-site’.

Company Page

• A new section of ‘Workplace’ has been added to LinkedIn company profiles showing workplace location (remote, on site, hybrid), the workplace policy, benefits, location based pay adjustment and vaccine policy.
• My Company Tools
• When the My Company tab rolls out to your business, you will be able to share content from your page feed to the My Company feed. Employees will be informed and will be linked to the My Company feed so they can easily share the content. Employees will also see the impact of sharing.
• Competitor Analytics (available on desktop only)
• Under Analytics, you can choose up to 9 pages to track to see followers, posts and engagements.

December 2021

Newsletter

A change is rolling out to start a newsletter in LinkedIn.

To access, turn ‘creator mode’ on in your profile, and click ‘Write an Article’, you will get the option to Start your own newsletter.

You can choose to publish the newsletter daily, weekly, bi-monthly or monthly and your followers will be invited to subscribe when you publish your first issue.

Subscribe to my monthly newsletter to keep connected in 2022 and beyond!

Phew – you made it to the end! Which new features are you using / loving and why?

Are you missing LinkedIn stories? I can’t say I am!

Hi, I’m Jennifer Corcoran.

I’m one of the UK’s most successful LinkedIn trainers.

They call me the Super Connector because I help female coaches, consultants & trainers attract their ideal client to reach that next level of revenue without having to resort to paid ads or awkward cold outreach.

Originally from Dublin, I live in Devon, England by the sea with my husband Mike. I’m a chatty, connection-focused introvert / empath, Capricorn, oat latte and travel lover.

I’ve helped thousands of people just like you thrive through my online courses, consulting, workshops, group programmes and talks.

If you want to work with me in 2022 email me at jennifer@mysuperconnector.co.uk or send a DM on LinkedIn. I try to respond to all messages within 24 hours Monday to Friday.

I look forward to helping you shine on LinkedIn!

This blog first appeared on LinkedIn in December 2021 as a newsletter.