Each time we update our iPhone application we like to focus on making improvements to existing features that are heavily used as well as providing new functionality. In this latest release, we have focused our efforts in two areas:
Building a better Inbox experience to make it easier to manage communication with your professional network.
Providing a new way to keep track of what your professional network is doing on LinkedIn.
Our latest iPhone release is now available in the App Store for download. Get it now:
One of the most important solutions we offer on LinkedIn is the ability to communicate with people in your professional network and beyond. We have built a brand new Inbox to make it easier to respond to and manage your messages while mobile.
The new Inbox offers quick access to viewing all of the messages you have received on LinkedIn, and a single tap lets you view all of your Sent and Archived messages.
Viewing Recent Activity
Keeping track of what your professional network is doing can be a challenge when you have a large network of connections. It’s easy to miss important updates from past and present colleagues, and we wanted to enable you to ‘catch up’ on a specific connection when it’s convenient for you. As part of this effort, you can now see the Recent Activity of any one of your connections right from their profile:
Like with Updates, you can easily like or comment on any one of the updates, or re-share it with your own network if it’s something you know they’ll be interested in.
What’s Next
We get a lot of feedback from our users on the features they’d like to see, and we are working our way through a long list of feature requests. We’ll continue to update the application frequently to bring new and improved features as quickly as we can.
If you want to keep up with what we’re doing, and have a place to give us feedback and talk about your ideas for LinkedIn on the iPhone, please join our LinkedIn for iPhone group.
In the past few weeks, we’ve begun sharing relevant LinkedIn news, events and video coverage through our @linkedinnews twitter account. For those of you who want more than just a scoop, we’re also starting a blog series that will highlight recent press on LinkedIn events. This is the first of many such posts.
On Wednesday, our CEO Jeff Weiner sat down with John Battelle at the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco. We thought we’d share with you both the video interview along with some of the related coverage and video snippets. The interview itself is about 30 minutes long (embedded below) but it covers a wide variety of topics – from our company’s growth to Jeff’s vision for the next wave of the global economy — the Talent Economy.
As I mentioned earlier, we plan to bring you similar coverage in a more time sensitive manner as we move forward. In the meanwhile, please follow us @linkedinnews for breaking news, tweets and related content on LinkedIn.
Ed. note: This belongs to a series of posts on how numerous websites and services are integrating LinkedIn functionality. This post is from Mary McCabe, VP of Global Product and Content Management at OneSource – a sales optimization tool with information on millions of companies and executives world wide.
When we created iSell, our goal was to transform sales by delivering all of the information a salesperson needs in one clean and easy-to-use application. Who is the hottest prospect? When should I call them? What is happening with them? How do I reach them? With iSell, we have created a tool that answers all of these questions.
While we have received great feedback on iSell, we are always seeking to make it better. The folks at LinkedIn believe that every business application would be fundamentally better if it was built over a platform of your professional reputation and relationships. We couldn’t agree more. iSell is now the most complete integration of a trigger-based sales application with the LinkedIn API to allow its users to perform optimized prospecting and relationship networking in one step.
Here’s how it works:
Detailed business information from OneSource’s LiveContent Platform – which blends together content from more than 50 data suppliers and thousands of information sources – is supplemented with personalized, timely triggers based upon real-time selling opportunities.
OneSource connects with LinkedIn’s API to tap into LinkedIn’s membership of over 80 million users, identifying the iSell user’s common connection to a prospect via their own LinkedIn account.
There’s no need to click through multiple pages or open widgets, it’s all right there in iSell. By opening up the LinkedIn API, LinkedIn has allowed iSell to deliver a seamless integration of all the essential phases of sales prospecting into one application.
The integration of iSell and LinkedIn happens throughout the application. Whether you are viewing executive or company profile pages, you are always alerted to you closest connection in your LinkedIn network.
Finally, because one of the core principles of iSell is delivering timely, trigger-based information; iSell includes a contact’s LinkedIn status updates as part of your trigger feed.
Ed. note: Since we launched Company Pages we’ve been overwhelmed with the response from companies and small businesses. Starting today, we’ll be featuring posts from them. Today, we’re glad to have Paul-Henri Ferrand, CMO of Dell Consumer, Small and Medium Business share his experience.
As a company that does more than 50% of its business online, Dell understands we are in a new era of e-commerce and shoppers have fundamentally changed their buying behaviors.
At Dell, we also see this shift towards social commerce as an incredible opportunity to continue building more powerful relationships with our customers. As a pioneer in the online space, we’ve been active in social commerce and support for some time with our Ratings & Reviews site housed on Dell.com, our activity on Twitter and Business Solutions Exchange group on LinkedIn – all places where customers can easily share experiences and learn from the knowledge of their peers.
Last summer, in partnership with Intel, we launched the Business Solutions Exchange community on LinkedIn, allowing our customers to harness their collective wisdom to support purchase decisions. Our new Company Page on LinkedIn reiterates our commitment of participation in leading social platforms.
Dell’s new and improved LinkedIn Company Page
Now, we’re excited to announce that we’ve taken the next step in integrating online shopping with the social sphere – with a new Product & Services tab on our LinkedIn Company Page. Dell is one of the many companies leveraging this new LinkedIn feature, which allows LinkedIn members to publish recommendations that are then linked to their professional profiles.
Our new LinkedIn Company Page has been active since last Tuesday, and we’ve received recommendations for our products and services ranging from our 5-inch tablet, the Dell Streak to our PowerEdge servers and Precision Workstation solutions. While our other social commerce ventures tend to cater more to consumers and small-business customers, this new platform provides an avenue to directly reach and engage with all our customers from individuals to large enterprises.
Our new Company Page represents an opportunity not only for customers to learn from one another, but also for us to learn from them. At Dell, providing stellar customer experience is key. Our customers trust us to deliver technology solutions that help them do and achieve more at home, work, school or anywhere in their world. To effectively do this, Dell connects with more than 5.4 million customers every day — on the phone, in person, on Dell.com and, increasingly, through social networking sites like LinkedIn.
Like with IdeaStorm and our other community properties on and off Dell.com, we’re certain our LinkedIn Company Page will be a great platform to hear directly from our customers what they like about our products and services and where they feel we can improve. Even though it’s only been live for a week, I’m energized by the results thus far and eager to see what kinds of data we’ll be able to garner from this innovative platform.
With a Company Page of over 60,000 followers within the LinkedIn professional network, I’m anxious to see which products and services spark the most online conversations.
Brendan is the Director of Global Talent Acquisition — in other words, recruiting — here at LinkedIn. Brendan’s had a really diverse career, working in Hollywood, in Technology, East Coast, West Coast, China, and more, so he’s going to tell you a little bit about why he’s so excited to be at LinkedIn.
Several years ago, through the power of the web, the open-source music community and social networking, I was able to create and distribute an album with musical collaborators from all over the world. This was a completely thrilling achievement. Music has always been a passion of mine and CC Mixter, an online music community gave me the support I needed to learn and grow as an artist.
Since joining LinkedIn’s Talent Acquisition Team, I keep coming back to this idea of following one’s passion, and the way a supportive, authentic community can help make that happen. I think about the people who encouraged me to explore recruiting and HR, in different industries and in different parts of the country and world. I benefited from the knowledge and advice of others. That’s something I believe LinkedIn can help professionals achieve at a massive scale.
It’s hard to find many parallels, so I’ll just say it plainly: I get to be part of the company that is changing the face of my profession. Because of LinkedIn, the recruiting team at LinkedIn isn’t just business as usual: cold-calls to possible matches for job openings. We’re developing real, ongoing relationships with people who will be great matches at some point in time, even if that time is not now. In addition, what makes this recruiting role at LinkedIn truly unique for me is that we are both the customer and consumer of our product. As a result, we truly collaborate with all parts of the company — from product roadmap and product ideas, to participation in business strategy discussions. Such an opportunity is extremely rare.
In 2009, Deloitte published work that stated:
Why does passion matter? Because staying competitive in the newly globalized labor market requires all of us to constantly renew and update our professional skills and capabilities. The effort required to increase our rate of professional development is difficult to muster unless we are passionately engaged with our professional activities.
I am a huge believer in passion as a differentiator, both personally and professionally. And, my role in LinkedIn has enabled me to take my creativity, love of recruiting and joy in building something special into another dimension.
You only need to look at an event like InDays — a monthly event we organize at LinkedIn where all LinkedIn employees create projects for LinkedInLabs, bring in speakers on crowdsourced topics, and mobilize around causes or ideas — to see the variety and diversity of interests and passions around the LinkedIn offices. The people here, their willingness to engage, learn, explore, in and out of the office, truly sets LinkedIn apart.
Of course, this post will not be complete if I don’t mention our Careers page. If this sounds like something you want to be a part of, please, get in touch with us.
Today is Veterans Day here in the US where we honor those that have served in the military. The most recent statistics from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics show a worsening employment situation among veterans. In these challenging economic times we dug into our data to see if we could identify useful insights relevant for veterans. We also put together a list of LinkedIn tips for veterans, from veterans who work at LinkedIn.
There are nearly half a million LinkedIn members with U.S. military service listed on their profile. For these veterans, here are the top 10 industries in terms of the total number of LinkedIn members currently working in that industry:
What’s interesting about the above list is that most veterans are taking their specialized skill sets and applying them to a wide range of industries (most of which are not immediately associated with the military). It’s a good reminder that a veteran’s skills are broadly applicable.
As an example of the diverse skill sets we know our veterans can apply, here are a few members of our own team at LinkedIn who have served.
Terry LaRock, corporate purchasing management at LinkedIn
Amber Mercado, enterprise services representative at LinkedIn
Tim Stanton, senior account executive for LinkedIn Hiring Solutions
Ted Treiber, engineering infrastructure manager at LinkedIn
Sam Mandolfo, enterprise account executive at LinkedIn
When we dug deeper into the data we wondered why we didn’t see some of the traditional industries that might have been expected. Once we normalized the data for the top 10 non-military and non-defense industries in terms of the concentration of veterans, the more traditional industries pop up:
What does the above chart say when taken together with the first one? It paints a picture of another great networking opportunity for veterans. The disproportionately high share of veterans in each of these industries suggests that veterans also look into directly transferring their military skill set into one of the above-related professions.
Along that direction we also identified the top locations for networking with other veterans. The graphic below shows the top 10 metropolitan areas in terms of the number of people on LinkedIn who have served in the military. Even though the concentration of veterans may be higher in certain areas (for example, close to a military base), the highest volume of networking opportunities is in the major metropolitan areas.
Finally, on a day honoring our veterans, here are our tips for veterans that are looking to get the most out of LinkedIn:
1. Build Your Network – Make sure your LinkedIn network is made up of at least 35 connections. Connect with current and former soldiers, sailors and Marines, college classmates, former co-workers and even friends and family since they know professionals in other industries.
3. Open the Door to Opportunities – Make sure your LinkedIn Profile is 100 percent complete and include descriptive phrases your work experience like the kinds of teams you were responsible for, programs you enacted that helped increase effectiveness, what countries you worked in, etc. Professionals use LinkedIn Advanced Search to search for keywords like “engineering,” or “government consulting.” Highlight your abilities in developing leaders, building strong teams, and overcoming difficult challenges. Include the units you served with and the ships you were aboard to help other veterans find you. If this info isn’t in your profile then clients, peers and potential employers won’t find you and you may be missing out on opportunities.
4. Uncover Great Contacts in Your Backyard – Use LinkedIn Advanced Search to find mentors if you’re looking to do a complete career switch. If you’re want to become a photographer, lawyer or sales executive do a search by title for people that currently hold those positions and are based near your zip code. Reach out to them to see if they’d be willing to give you tips and advice on getting into that profession. You can also use this technique to search for recruiters and hiring managers that live in your city or a city you’d be interested in moving to. Click on the person’s profile and you’ll see if anyone in your network knows them and can introduce you.
5. Find Your Dream Job – LinkedIn makes it easy for professionals to follow LinkedIn Company Pages and stay updated on senior level changes and new hires at companies you care about. Search for your dream employers’ company page and click “Follow Company” to get regular updates on hiring, promotions, departures and job listings as soon as they happen.
Most of all, to all the veterans out there, thank you for your service!
In honor of Diwali, LinkedIn has created a greetings page for our celebrating friends. The page is only viewable in India, but check out some pictures below from our staff. If you are located in India you can go to in.linkedin.com to view all the wishes from LinkedIn employees.
Happy Diwali and a prosperous new year! Deep Nishar, VP of Product and User Experience at LinkedIn, and wife Rashmi Nishar
May your year be full of lights and labs! Ramesh Subramonian, Senior Quality Assurance at LinkedIn, and puppy
Diwaali ki bahot saari shubhkaamnaayein. Neha Desai, Senior Quality Engineer at LinkedIn, and family
We are glad to provide companies a place on LinkedIn to showcase their products, services and associated recommendations. Company Pages will enable companies to build their brand through network-aware recommendations, giving members rich, credible insights into how any given product (or service) is perceived by their fellow professionals. We’re starting today with over 40 companies who now have their “Products and Services” tab enabled on their Company page. We’ll be rolling out this feature for all companies and small businesses over the course of this week.
What’s new for professionals
Product or service recommendations from one’s professional peers are among the most trusted forms of product information. They play a critical role in helping professionals cut through the clutter in making time-sensitive decisions about key purchases.
Making intelligent recommendations helps define your professional persona as an influencer and helps you build credibility with potential employers, partners and colleagues. Most importantly, it offers additional value to your network of connections who may be looking for your recommendation before they make their next purchase.
What’s new for Companies
For companies, both large brands as well as small businesses, Company pages now allows you to showcase recommendations from your customers and helps build your brand virally and credibly on LinkedIn. Each time a LinkedIn member endorses your products or services, their recommendation becomes visible to all of their connections and could spread virally. When you promote and curate these recommendations, you have some of the most credible, authentic endorsements of your products on your Company Page’s Product tab.
We’re really excited to be launching Company Pages with over 40 companies globally ranging from small businesses to Fortune 500 companies. These include HP, Microsoft Corporation, Samsung Electronics America, AT&T Business Solutions and Dell in the US, Philips in Europe, Volkswagen in India and more. The initial feedback from companies has been extremely positive. Here’s HP’s Chief Marketing Officer Michael Mendenhall: “LinkedIn is a pioneer in harnessing the power of social media and brands can benefit tremendously from participating in this networking of leading professionals.”
Moving forward, we’ll continue to profile great examples of Company Pages on our blog. In the meanwhile, check out your own company’s page at http://www.linkedin.com/companies/.
At LinkedIn, we’ve been so inspired by the It Gets Better Project and are very proud to add our employees’ voices into the conversation. Amidst our 80 million members are countless examples of people who have proven that it truly does get better. Sexual orientation has no impact on someone’s ability to contribute to an organization. What we’ve learned through this campaign is that it is definitely worth it to hang on through challenging periods in order to discover how your personal experiences can contribute to the world. Here are a few of our employees who did just that. And, we are so glad they did.
I’m pleased to announce a much requested addition to our existing group moderation toolset, which we launched recently to help group managers reduce spam and maintain a high level of quality in professional group conversations. Starting today, group managers can adjust user permissions to determine an approval process before that content is displayed. This allows group managers to weed out spam before it pollutes your groups conversation stream.
Managers now have highly granular control over the type of content requiring moderation, and they can determine the duration of a “trial period” by setting the number of days a new member has to be in the group before being able to post freely. The flexibility of this new tool will also apply to digest emails that group members have signed up to receive each week.
Group managers and moderators can screen content submissions from the new “Submissions Queue” under the group’s Manage tab. From there the individual content item can be deleted, approved, or moved to Promotions or Jobs. As the manager evaluates content, the individual contributor can be removed from the group, left in their current permission level, or allowed to post freely from that moment.
As a group member, you can always see which of your group submissions are still pending by going to your Activity page for the group and clicking on “Pending Submissions”. Remember that you can always get to your groups’ “Activity” page from the “More” dropdown in the group’s navigation bar or by clicking your own profile image in a group discussion. The usual 15-minute edit window applies to a submission, in case you need to edit what you’ve shared. Users can also check submissions via the convenient “View my pending comments” link located at the top of of any thread awaiting manager approval.
Again, we continue listening to your feedback and making improvements to a product we hope you find very useful. Please feel free to leave a comment at the bottom of this post or @linkedin us on Twitter.
We love to hear from you. So feel free to comment, but keep in mind the basics of blog etiquette — no spam, no profanity, no slander, etc. All comments are moderated.
Deep Nishar, VP of Product and User Experience at LinkedIn, and wife Rashmi Nishar
Ramesh Subramonian, Senior Quality Assurance at LinkedIn, and puppy
Neha Desai, Senior Quality Engineer at LinkedIn, and family
