7 Future Predictions On LinkedIn

No doubt, it’s an exciting time to be alive. With technology advancing faster than you ever thought, we’re constantly awed by some of the exciting possibilities that seem only a stone throw away. But what do these exciting new possibilities mean for LinkedIn?

Daily we speak to clients who ask us ‘Will LinkedIn do this?’ or ‘What do you think LinkedIn will do about that?’ From video to new features on LinkedIn profiles, we’ve been asked it all about the future of LinkedIn.

Due to this, we felt compelled to write a blog post on the 7 future features on LinkedIn that we predict to be rolled out in the next few years. We’ll briefly explain each future feature in this post. Then in our next 7 articles over the coming few months, we’ll dive deep into each feature and explain how each will potentially look and how that will be beneficial for the social media network.

Video Connection Invites

One of the biggest issues that all social media networks face is marketers trying to automate the lead generation process. This then leads to people getting spammed and switching off from that particular social media network because why would you go on a platform just to get people spamming you?

LinkedIn has done a phenomenal job in limiting this. But no matter what you do, spammers will find a way around it. We’ve always been against using automated tools that try to ‘hack’ a social media network to get you more leads.

We believe if you are genuinely interested in helping other people you need to take your time to understand who they are and there are no shortcuts to this. This is what quality social selling is all about.

So for LinkedIn to help people stop being spammed and to create quality business connections, we see video connection invites being key. Before reaching out and connecting you have the option to use a quick 10 – 20-second video of yourself explaining why you have reached out to connect.

More labour intensive yes. Higher quality network and no spam? Tick.

AI and LinkedIn

Artificial Intelligence is going to change the game when it comes to communication and time efficiency. For those that are unaware AI is a computer’s ability to perform tasks that generally take human intelligence to complete.

For example little tasks that only take a few minutes to complete like setting yourself a calendar invite can be done instantly by an Artificial Intelligence. But to extend it even further, AI would begin to know you and make beneficial decisions for you based on your needs and wants.

If someone approached you about something you don’t need, the AI would politely decline on your behalf. However, if someone comes to you with something that you need, well then the AI can make the decision to notify you of this and set up a meeting with that person without you ever having to think about it.

Perhaps this is how the video connection invites come in, the AI checks if you want to speak to John Doe about his legal services. You watch the 20 second connection video and if you’re interested the AI will set up the meeting. The whole AI space will take a lot of mechanical decisions you make off your plate, so we can see a lot of front end communications between people being automated.

How else can AI positively affect LinkedIn? Well, we can see AI connecting you with people who it knows will mutually benefit you. Let’s say you need a certain skill within your organisation and it’s been difficult to find people who are best suited. The AI could connect and set a meeting with people it feels are the best candidates based on your criteria instantly.

The result? Creating better quality businesses by connecting the right people to the right opportunities.

Profile Video

Better start getting good on camera because if you want to have a compelling LinkedIn profile it’s no longer going to be just text. We see LinkedIn allowing you to create a short (30-60) second video on your LinkedIn profile with a quick pitch of who you are and what you do.

Yes we’re video heavy on our predictions, but that’s where the online world is going. A recent report by Cisco said that by 2018 80% of the content on the internet is going to be video. So best start getting great on camera now so you can stand out from the crow.

LinkTime (Virtual Meetings)

One of the reasons that technology is advancing at the rate that it is, is due to technological convergence. When a large company like a LinkedIn or Apple or Google want to add skills to their company, rather than trying to build it internally often they will acquire a company that is the best in their field in that particular technology.

Microsoft purchased Skype so it has a grasp on the video communications space so it can start adding Skype into its other products. Google purchased Deep Mind so it can be a leader in AI in the future and integrate AI into their other technologies. These types of strategic purchases happen regularly in the tech sector and that means technologies converge and advance faster.

One of the ways we see technology converging for LinkedIn would be the virtual meeting functionality. Now that Microsoft owns Skype and LinkedIn we see that technology being integrated into LinkedIn.

Just connected with someone and want to book in a meeting to find out more? How much easier would it be doing it within LinkedIn by setting up a quick virtual meeting rather than taking it outside of the platform.

Checking in

Going on a business trip interstate or a meeting in the city with a few hours to spare? Check in. Just like you can do on Facebook, we see LinkedIn rolling out a similar feature allowing you to check in at any location you arrive in.

This will appear on your news feed so once your 1st degree connections see it and if they are free then they can engage with you to set up a potential catch up/meeting. The result? More meaningful prospect opportunities.

We also predict that part of this feature will enable you to get push notifications of when a potential lead is in the same location/suburb so that you can reach out and connect with more purpose and context than ever before. It could even go as far as suggesting meetup times and recommended places to meet.

Ability to advertise through a personal profile

What’s going to happen with advertising on LinkedIn? Well, given personal branding is such a key component of Social Selling these days, we predict that LinkedIn will start allowing individuals to advertise through their personal account.

We are no longer in the B2B or B2C business, we live in the H2H world where customers buy into the people behind the company before they even care about the company or its products. It’s no wonder that the 2nd most viewed page on the internet is the About Us page of your website. So to us the obvious roll out is the ability for individuals to be able to advertise through their personal account.

Native video including live video

This is a no brainer and something we can see being roll out very soon. It’s allowing you to post videos within LinkedIn. Video content is taking over and we predict LinkedIn will roll this out soon in its bid to increase engagement.

Already you can play YouTube videos within LinkedIn and they have worked with Influencers in the past where they’ve posted native videos directly into the platform. The possibilities are endless when it comes to video in LinkedIn, but this is something you need to start thinking about in your content marketing on LinkedIn and how you can take advantage of this once it starts being rolled out.

So there you have it, our top 7 predictions for LinkedIn. Excited by the future features for LinkedIn? We are.

Keep an eye out for our next round of articles where we will dive deep into each prediction and explain it in more detail. We will also be covering this in our episodes of The Ask linkfluencer® Show, so be sure to keep an eye out for that.