If you have been using LinkedIn for a while, you may have noticed that some things have changed lately. Over the past year, the developers have made strides to turn LinkedIn into a more conventional social media site, rather than the unique perspective it maintains by being totally different from the rest of the digital world. This article will discuss some of the 2024 changes to LinkedIn and how they might impact your usage.
The Biggest Change: The Algorithm
Over the last year, LinkedIn has evidently implemented a new algorithm, at least in all practical senses of the word. Today, compared to a year ago, users are much more likely to see some more social media like behavior from our favorite online networking site. The new “for you” appearances show not only posts similar to ones you have engaged with, but also short-form videos and advertisements. In this way, LinkedIn is more reminiscent of Tiktok or YouTube Shorts. With the “for you” posts, in the same way, Facebook, X (Twitter), Instagram, and other sites have made their influence known on LinkedIn.
Changing Aides
Some of the recent changes to LinkedIn are designed to help its users thrive. For instance, LinkedIn has ramped up efforts to promote a profile verification process, similar to X (formerly Twitter), but even better – it is free. This can, in theory, ensure you are speaking to the person in the profile.
Likewise, LinkedIn added an AI chatbot to its posting method. This AI tool doesn’t produce content, but if you plug in a prompt or some text you are struggling with, it could spit back something useful to post. LinkedIn has repeatedly made attempts to improve the tool since it was introduced over the summer, meaning the feature is likely to stick around in a world becoming more reliant and tolerant of artificial intelligence.
Change to More Fun, Less Professional
One of the other big changes to LinkedIn lately has been the addition of online games playable through the platform. Again, in an effort to social media-ize the site, LinkedIn now lets users solve puzzles. Yes, this is all fun and games, but also not exactly built for networking and creating an online resume/brand. That said, there could be some fun interactions with your connections playing the game, so in that regard, enjoy the fun and games!
Perhaps one of the oddest changes to LinkedIn lately has been their removal of the “Top Voice” badges on profiles. These badges came from users contributing their thoughts to AI-prompted content and appear to be the main motivator for users to interact with the collaborative articles section of the platform. While these badges did not necessarily prove expertise, they allowed for people to appear more authoritative at first glace, which may have translated to actual expertise. The promotion of AI-prompted, non-peer reviewed content was always dubious, but removal of a potential branding tool on a site dedicated to networking and personal/professional branding was probably the wrong approach to take to an idea with merit.
These are just some of the many changes that took place on LinkedIn over the last year, but these are probably the biggest. All in all, LinkedIn has become more of a typical social media site over the last year than it previously had been.
