Three New Features You Should Know About On LinkedIn

Sophia Mowatt - October 12, 2012

Within the last two weeks LinkedIn has introduced multiple changes to make connecting with other sociable professionals easier.  Here are the top three we think you should know about.

Endorsements

You can now endorse your LinkedIn connections for a skill that they have listed on their profile or better yet, you can recommend them to add a skill that they haven’t listed.  There are two ways to endorse your connections:

1. By going to the new Skills & Expertise (beta) page from the “More” drop down menu on the LinkedIn home page.

2. By clicking the yellow “Endorse” button in the blue box on the profile page of your                        connection as you can see in the screenshot below.

LinkedIn will notify you by email if you get endorsed. You can also scroll to the bottom of your profile page to see the people who’ve endorsed your skills.

Follow Professionals
As you might know, if you aren’t a colleague, old classmate, friend, in a group with or done business with someone on LinkedIn you cannot connect with them.  Now, LinkedIn has made it possible to follow other professionals.  Currently, you can only follow what LinkedIn considers 150 of the most influential leaders.  Some of those as you can see in the screen shot below include Presidential candidate Mitt Romney and Sir Richard Branson.

Once you follow any of these thought leaders, you will be able to like, comment and share their posts.  Fortunately, LinkedIn plans to expand their list of influencers within the next few months to individuals who they consider to be industry specific movers and shakers.  Want to get on that list?  LinkedIn is also offering you the opportunity to submit a request to become an influencer by going to http://partner.linkedin.com/influencer/.

New Company Pages
LinkedIn started testing new company pages a few weeks ago a select few companies. Recently they rolled out the new company pages to more than 2 million companies.  The changes on the new company pages are mostly aesthetic.  It now includes room for a larger cover image, easily visible content and they are now viewable on mobile devices.  You can see what the new company pages look like in the screenshot below.