What’s Your Cover Story?
Welcome to this weeks LinkedInformed.
It’s been a big week for new features but the biggest and best of all of them is the option to add a video introduction to your profile photo. I actually made a spoof video about this in 2015…I’m still waiting for LinkedIn to thank me for the idea!
More of the cover story feature later but let’s start with some interesting things I saw this week;
Recruiter gets banned by LinkedIn…for doing what a Recruiter does!
The Trust & Safety team at LinkedIn are definitely getting more twitchy as automation becomes a bigger problem on the platform. Unfortunately, this results in innocent victims such as Kelsi Cory. This case was highlighted in this post;
As you can see, Joel gained great support and Kelsi eventually got her account back.
I’m not sure if Kelsi had a Recruiter licence at the point she got banned (I’m catching up with her this week to find out more) but if not, it is a warning that Recruiters do need to be careful about how many profiles they view in a short period of time. If she was a Recruiter licence holder then that is a different ball game - LinkedIn should hang their heads in shame - Recruiter licences are very expensive and you are paying for the right to view lots of profiles…that’s the point! They should offer her at least one years free subscription to Recruiter to aplogise!
LinkedIn confirms it’s working on a Clubhouse rival
Alessandro Paluzzi first came across this whilst reverse engineering the LinkedIn app and then it was later confirmed by a LinkedIn spokesperson who stated;
We’re doing some early tests to create a unique audio experience connected to your professional identity. And, we’re looking at how we can bring audio to other parts of LinkedIn such as events and groups, to give our members even more ways to connect to their community
Here’s a mock up of what this might look like;
You can read more in is this Techcrunch article
This would be a fantastic addition to LinkedIn and would make audio debate so much more useful than it is on Clubhouse. The problem with Clubhouse is that your average LinkedIn user won’t be anywhere near that platform. The ability to have audio debates and conversations on a business networking platform would be gold!
The problem is that I have little confidence in LinkedIn to deliver a good product, let’s face it they don’t have a great track record in copying features from other social media sites. Let’s see though, only time will tell - it would certainly be a very exciting development.
New Creator Mode
This is the new feature that everyone seems to be getting most excited about.
I think it’s good and I like it…but it’s not exactly groundbreaking!
If you want this feature in your profile you will first need to switch it on which you can do at https://members.linkedin.com/linkedin-creators-home
Once you turn on creator mode:
- The Connect button on your profile will change to Follow.
- We’ll display the number of followers you have in your profile intro.
- You can choose to display the topics you post about in your profile intro.
- Your profile will reorder to show your Featured and Activity sections first although in my case this didn’t happen!
- Your Activity section will be expanded to showcase more of your recent content and will no longer show your likes, comments, and other activity.
Creator mode will be automatically turned off if you do any of the following:
- Switch your Followers settings from Everyone on LinkedIn to Your connections.
- Disable Follow as the primary action when members view your profile.
I enabled mine in the afternoon and initially, nothing happened, then the next morning my profile had changed. It seems that anyone can switch enable on but only when it is your turn for rollout does it show on your profile.
I like the fact that your follower number is more prominent although it would be much better if they finally got rid of the ridiculous 500+ connections display and replaced it with the actual number of connections. If the point of showing the follower number is to show influence then someone who has 40,000 followers and 10,000 connections is clearly more influential than someone who has 40,000 followers and 30,000 connections!
The Hashtag thing is OK but probably just LinkedIns way of desperately trying to make hashtags more relevant!
I like the focus on posts rather than engagement but I also think it’s important to see how engaged someone is. There are too many creators here who contribute nothing to the community other than just posting their content. I still think it’s a sign of influence that someone is present on the platform.
Live in your profile
The other new feature is pretty exciting for Live video producers. Your background image changes to your live video whilst you are presenting your live broadcast! LinkedIn suggest this is related to the creator mode but I have seen someone today who does not have a creator profile but their live broadcast was showing in their profile background.
Cover Story Intro video
As you can see in the video above, this really brings your profile to life by allowing you to introduce yourself to your profile viewer. You only get 20 secs which is quite restrictive but I can understand why they have done that.
You can only add this via the mobile app but it can be seen on desktop.
Only those with the feature can see others’ cover story. Hopefully, it will roll out to everyone pretty quickly. I suspect it’s being given to premium members first - I don’t think it’s related to whether you have enabled creator mode or not.
I would suggest making your video (in portrait mode) outside of LinkedIn and then upload it from your camera reel.
The 3 second preview is genius and informs the viewer there is a video to see.
I can’t actually see my cover story or preview when I view my own profile, only when I edit but others have reported they can see it.
I’m so pleased LinkedIn have done this…it may have taken them nearly 6 years to do it following my video above but they got there in the end! 😉
Post of the week
This one is a bit controversial but a good example of how content such as this can do very well.
Here’s why it worked;
- A controversial and polarising topic
- She takes a personal angle
- It’s highly topical
That’s all for this week.
I hope you all have an amazing Easter break and don’t indulge in too much choccie!