Tunity Thoughts: design refresh for LinkedIn

It's been more than five years since LinkedIn got a revamp. In recent years, however, both Facebook and Instagram have received some fine updates. High time for a touch of modernity, also for the professionals among us. With more than 700 million users worldwide, the platform cannot be left behind, because you know as well as we do that it is crucial to keep your users engaged.

Objective: to create an easier and more pleasant user experience. So LinkedIn not only provides up-to-date branding, but also a few new features. Impatient? The rollout will start from the end of September 2020.

That's kind of the slogan with which LinkedIn announces this change. It's all a little simpler, more modern and more intuitive. That way, the platform hopes users can get even more out of it.

One of the most important changes has to do with the search function to locate people, events, groups and content. This was already easy to use, but would now become a little more pleasant to work with through the use of an optimized filter. And for the fans: yep, there will also be a dark mode coming!

More good news! In 2020, we will also be introduced to LinkedIn Stories. You already know the format from the other popular channels: you post a post that will only be online for a limited period of time (up to 24 hours). Of course, on LinkedIn, the idea is not to publish your "what I eat in a day," but also to keep the content purely professional. Quick tips and tricks, novelties, learnings, jobs or cases. Stories allow you to make even stronger connections, also on a professional level.

A few things we already know.

• The stories will be available for 24 hours, but you could save them.
• Once published, you cannot edit them.
• They are only available through the mobile app for now.
• Videos can be up to 20 seconds long.
• You can share stories via private messages.
• You could also contact the creator of the story, but only if you are a first-degree connection.
• The creator can see who viewed the story.

According to LinkedIn itself, its main purpose is to "start the conversation." We couldn't agree more! Are you an active member on LinkedIn yourself? Then you probably know how important it is to continuously interact with the community. Maintaining relationships is crucial. Publishing content on a regular basis is part of this. With the arrival of stories, this is now even easier.

Need some inspiration already? These things you can share, for example:

Concepts

And projects you're working on.

Learnings

From existing cases.

Live Topics

At events and in the office.

Behind the scenes

For an employer branding boost.

News

And valuable updates to your community.

Tips & tricks

To get started right away.

A much-needed update or just more of the same? We think it's a very smart move by LinkedIn to make this refresh now. Especially the stories and video calling capabilities are a nice plus in these (still) bizarre times. Connection is more crucial than ever in our digital, everyday lives. However, it remains to be seen how audiences will use it effectively.

Personally, we fear a bit that the stories could soon be misused as a new way of advertising. Pushing certain products or thoughts via a "life changing productivity hack" is quick. Too much of that content makes the new feature uninteresting and perhaps even distracting in the long run. That line is thin, but important. So a clear do's-and-don'ts guide is no luxury.

Are the changes not visible to you yet? Don't worry. It will be rolled out to everyone in the coming weeks. We'll be happy to test it out for you. To be continued...