Communicating more effectively through LinkedIn
Quick Update: Thanks for all the feedback you’ve sent us on the new LinkedIn Communication features. Some of you may have noticed that while replying to InMails/Introductions, hitting the “Send” button would reload the page without sending the message. That has been remedied and you should be able to send messages without any hitches right now. Stay tuned to the blog for further feature enhancements coming shortly.
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So, the last time I was on the blog it was to introduce some simple feature enhancements to the LinkedIn Inbox in a post called “Getting Things Done with your Inbox“. Today, I’m back to announce a slew of further enhancements that we believe you’ll find immensely valuable. Our product, design and engineering teams would love to hear your feedback on the same. So feel free to leave a comment or two.
Here are the three feature enhancements users will notice when you receive or send messages through LinkedIn, next time around:
1. Pictures in all LinkedIn Communication:
Since the launch of photos in LinkedIn profiles, a huge number of our users have chosen to utilize the feature to augment their online professional brand with their photograph. Here’s my LinkedIn profile with my picture. We’re now taking that one step further by displaying photos in all communication that goes forth between users, whether it’s through InMails or Introductions.
In order for the photo to be displayed to the recipient of the message we’re allowing the users to choose whether or not they would like their photos to be displayed in all communication with their connections. This feature can be particularly powerful when receiving Invitations. Imagine being able to identify whether an invitation is from someone you had a conversation with at a recent event vs. someone you don’t recognize.
2. Receiving Messages:
The receiving preferences for InMails have also been given a makeover and succinctly arranged on one page, so now it’s easier for you to choose how you wish to receive any kind of communication within LinkedIn, whether as individual emails, batch emails or if you’d rather just view your emails directly on the site.
The “Receiving Messages” command center under “Account and Settings”
3. Revamped InMail system:
And finally, we’ve also revamped our communication system for In Mails and Introductions to reflect a more consistent look and feel with other messages you’re receiving. With all these changes implemented you can certainly expect bigger and better enhancements much more quickly in the future. Stay tuned to the blog for further updates and feel free to leave your feedback/suggestions/questions.
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Chris wasn’t too happy with the Pizza he had yesterday and is also bummed that he didn’t credit Omar Lee in the above video! But, we did get Omar for the group photo below.
(The LinkedIn Communications team behind Inbox changes | from l – r on top: J.J.Shen, Qian Su, Sean Dawson, Armin Ahumada, and Omar Lee; below from l – r Phay Tac Lau, Chris Richman, and Ruslan Belkin ) trackback
http://blog.linkedin.com/2007/10/12/new-features/trackback/
Thomas Clifford October 12th, 2007
Thanks, Chris, for these updates. I do have one question.
You mention: “In order for the photo to be displayed to the recipient of the message we’re allowing the users to choose whether or not they would like their photos to be displayed in all communication with their connections.”
Where is the setting for this option? I have my photo set to be visible to everyone. Thanks. Tom
Jacob October 12th, 2007
I like the way you use the YouTube clip to support the blog entry – nice work and enjoy the pizza :-)
James Grant Hay October 12th, 2007
Thank you Chris and LinkedIn Comms team for the photo feature!
Question, any plans for photo thumbnails to appear in profile search results?
Cheers. James
Cristian Mezei October 12th, 2007
Great new addons to make my life easier. Just a question: an 8 person team for some inbox changes ? :)
Chris Richman October 12th, 2007
Thomas — I probably should have been more clear in my post. Photos on Inbox messages follow the same preference that’s used for displaying your photo on your profile. To adjust that, click on Account & Settings, then “My Profile Photo”.
James — We’re looking into various places on the site where photos would be useful. That sounds like a good idea to me. I’ll forward your suggestion to the Product Manager in charge of search.
Martin Hinshelwood October 13th, 2007
Hi Chris,
Would it be posible to Sync the photo from your profile into peoples outlooks?
If this is done then it will also be on the pocket PC’s if people Sync…
That way, when you recieve that phone call from a contact you can imediatly recognise them :)
Martin
Shiva Shankar October 14th, 2007
Te Linkedin Profile URL http://www.linkedin.com/in/sshiva doesn’t show the photograph where in actually the photo is uploaded and shows up when clicked on view full profile link. I checked up the settings and it says “Share my photograph with everyone”. Not sure whether its a bug.
Pooja Katna October 15th, 2007
This is great Chris. I have one suggestion – I think it would be really beneficial if we could get information on when the profile was last updated / accessed as that would give an idea of how recent the information is. There are some people who have obviously moved on from where they were working but their profiles don’t indicate the change.
Donna Jones October 15th, 2007
I received several requests to forward Introductions in the last week or so. This new system is a step backward in functionality. The first thing that I noticed is that I now have to decide blindly whether or not to forward the requests. I can’t read what the requesting person wrote to the target person until after I decide whether or not to forward the message. I liked the old interface much better because everything that I needed to see was on the front page.
Chris Richman October 15th, 2007
Martin: That’s an interesting idea. We like the idea, in general, of being able to use your LinkedIn information in other places. I’ll pass it along to the Product Manager for that area.
Shiva: We have a separate setting for displaying the photo on your *public* profile. Click on the My Profile tab, then “Edit My Public Profile”. Make sure the “Picture” checkbox is checked.
Pooja: Thanks for the feedback. I’ll pass that on to the people that work on Profiles. There may be potential privacy considerations with letting non-connections know how often you update your profile, but I can see how it would be useful to have some sort of indicator about how up-to-date the information is.
Donna: You’re absolutely right about not being able to see the message intended for the final recipient before you decide to forward it. I’m going to try to get that changed by the end of the week. Thanks for pointing it out! In the meantime, you can click the forward button, and then cancel if you decide not to forward it after reading the message.
Chris
Benjamin October 17th, 2007
Great stuff! For visually orientated people like me, this extended use of photos is a real help. I appreciate the focus on helping us users be productive! Thank you!
Carlos October 20th, 2007
Hi guys,
I just have some feature request, and i can’t find where to send it! It’s just a bad day, i’m out of luck or it’s really not that easy to contact you?
Well, my feature request it’s related to published papers or articles, and speeches or talks. There is no place to add those (i think important background) to the profile.
Thanks!
Arnnei Speiser October 23rd, 2007
LinkedIn is a real asset for making managing your own contacts, acquiring new connections and extending your reach through the connections tree.
It is still missing some necessary feature for managing the personal contacts and making practical use of them.
The requests mechanism is great. But once you have developed a business network you need more then the ability to send questions and requests.
The LICM is an added benefit tool (Freeware) that was developed for that reason. It was developed to add the missing link in managing your contacts using the LinkedIn facility better , easier and even when you don’t have access to the Internet.
Sheilah Etheridge October 27th, 2007
Great changes to the inmails system. I love most of them. However, it was better to be able to download the vcard on the old system rather than copying and pasting the address and having to fill out all the data as it is now. Any chance of getting that feature back?
Sheilah
Jason Greenspan January 26th, 2008
how do you message multiple connections with an email/ inmail via linkedIn?
Chris Richman January 28th, 2008
Jason: We currently only allow InMails to be sent to single recipients. However, you can send messages to up to 10 of your connections at a time. There are two ways to initiate it. 1) Click the inbox link at the top of the page, then click the “Compose message” button. From there you can type in the names of the other recipients, or click the address book icon to choose them from a list. 2) you can start the same process by going to the profile of a connection and clicking “Send a message” then clicking “Include others on this message.” This will allow you to send messages to up to 10 of your connections at a time.
Chris