Just before the New Year, Microsoft finalized its $26 billion acquisition of LinkedIn. We knew it wouldn’t be long before their software, operating system, and interface expertise resulted in some substantial changes for the world’s largest business networking platform. These changes go far beyond the updated teal color scheme, which we love.

More Intuitive Navigation

Just as Microsoft studies how people engage with their software to make incremental changes, they have done the same with LinkedIn’s navigation bar. The links are:

• Home – a feed of content created and/or posted by your contacts.
• My Network – which will now show you the exact number of connections you have if there are more than 500. You will also be able to view invitations and a list of people you may know.
• Jobs – which will show you a variety of positions you may be interested in, based on your profile. You can update your preferences here so the jobs reflect your latest update.
• Messaging – this feature now looks even more like a sophisticated email application, with photos for everyone with whom you correspond.
• Notifications – when your contacts’ lives get more exciting, you can be the first to say “Congrats” or “Happy Birthday” just by clicking the buttons. Sincerity is so 2014!

Trending Storyline

Have you ever wondered how some people are able to take command of a meeting by relating company issues to trending stories in the business news? They may do it by watching CNBC, reading the Wall Street Journal, or catching the news on their RSS feed. None of these options are as efficient as LinkedIn’s new “Trending Storyline” feature.

This personalized feed of news stories is based on topics you are likely to be interested in, your field and other information in your profile. Each Storyline contains relevant posts from LinkedIn influencers, including people you are connected with, if any produce content. Also, as journalism generally becomes more biased to one end of the spectrum or another – whether it’s politics, the prospects of an IPO, or art – this feature will expose users to a variety of viewpoints.

Here’s a video showing how it all works:

[embedyt] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=snYkqz7CA-Y[/embedyt]

Real Time Messaging

Got something urgent to say to someone in your network? The fastest way to get the message to them may be through the ubiquitous messaging feature. Wherever you go on LinkedIn, it’s there at the bottom right hand corner of the page. We suspect this will dramatically raise the number of LinkedIn visits, as people now have a reason other than networking to use the site.

Social Posts Metrics

In 2016, you finally took the plunge and decided to post content on LinkedIn. Whether you reposted content or created original articles, you enhanced your profile and visibility within your industry circles. But you had no idea if people were actually reading your posts. Now you can see how many people read your posts so that you can incrementally improve your game. Better yet, you can see exactly who is consuming and sharing your content and build relationships with other influencers.

The more LinkedIn does to drive site visits, the more important it is for you to have an effective profile. Take twenty minutes tonight to make yours an employer magnet with our advice in Get Hired by Raising Your Rank on LinkedIn.