Welcome to episode 153, this week I discuss my thoughts on @ mentions in LinkedIn posts. There seems to be a growing trend out there and I’m not sure it’s all good.

But first……

Interesting Stuff I Saw This Week

It looks like LinkedIn are making no headway with Russia; Russia says ‘nyet,’ continues LinkedIn block after it refuses to store data in Russia

Perhaps Jeff Weiner needs to have a word with his new President…..I believe he has some good contacts in Russia!!

Update

Last week I featured a question from Jamie…..firstly I used the wrong name! It was actually from Robert Curley….apologies Robert. Giles got in touch with a solution to this issue. Apparently the URL; http://www.linkedin.com/people/invites still works and will take you back to the old sent invites page, this version allows you to see the message you sent (assuming you had personalised the message in the first place)

Thanks to Giles Davis for that.

New Desktop Design Update

LinkedIn are now rolling out more ‘advanced’ filters in search, I don’t have the feature yet but I saw this screenshot this week.

Whilst LinkedIn are clearing adding features back in, they don’t seem to be fixing bugs as quickly! Recommendations are still badly broken and I’m finding the lack of the ‘hover over profile preview’ really annoying.

@ Mentions. Are they being overused?

I’m noticing an increasing amount of posts that are using the @mention feature in what I feel is an inappropriate manner. The above example is one but I have also seen it where someone posts something less promotional - maybe some content and @mentions a ton of people.

This would be OK if those people are asked to contribute or answer a question but in isolation it feels a bit pushy to me. The hidden message seems to be ‘Please share my content’ but there are better, more personal ways to ask someone to share your content.

I have also noticed a growing trend towards @mentions in comments. This can work very well for instance the below example where I am being asked to help or you might ask for someone’s point of view;

But I have also noticed a lot of people just tagging someone…no comment or question just their name.

This is being used as a way to share the post with someone, which is good but the right way to do this is to ‘share’ the post via a message

That is how I see it but I’m interested to know what you think.

Drop me a line at [email protected] or better still, leave me a voice mail by clicking on the link at the side of this page (see image below)

Q - Why don't I get notified when all my contacts post an article?

Previously we received a notification when one of our contacts had published a Pulse blog (now article). Now I only see a few notifications from my contacts publishing articles. This week I know of two people who published an article, but it did not show in my Notifications!

Ans - The algorithm has definitely changed on this front. The problem is that so many people are publishing articles and LinkedIn does not want to overwhelm you! I think they will only notify you when someone you have shown more interest in posts. Activity and engagement definitely helps the algorithm to make better decisions for us so perhaps try engaging more with those members and their articles.

Q - Where do I go to browse through my draft articles. Is this missing from the new UI?

Ans - No the link you need is shown below;

Social Media Communication Talk

I’m delivering a short TED style talk this coming week in Manchester. It’s not specifically about LinkedIn but more about how we are all learning how to communicate again with social media. If you are in the area, why not come along and say hello. This is also a brand new talk so I would really appreciate some feedback.

TED Discussion Group Event. 14th March 7-9pm, Manchester

Mentioned in this episode:

This show was created by the original host of the show, Mark Williams.