LinkedIn Introduces Professional Blogging, Will Let You ‘Follow’

Ganny | October 2, 2012 | 0 Comments

LinkedIn, the networking site for professional, has traditionally been less ‘socially’ active compared to regular social networking sites. It is a deliberate choice. But never-the-less, a site has to grow and develop over time and for LinkedIn, this has to be achieved without losing its professionality. So, when it decided to pluck a page out of Twitter and Facebook, it decided to add the LinkedIn touch to it.

The ‘follow’ feature is originally from the micro blogging site Twitter, which lets you follow people and gets updates from them. Facebook tried to emulate this feature last year with its ‘subscribe’ feature, which lets you get updates that they make it available to their subscribers. LinkedIn now has a similar feature. The professional networking site will let you follow a selected few famous personalities and read what they have to share with you.

The major difference here is that LinkedIn has actually shortlisted a selected few people, who it thinks are well known and have a strong global reach. The current number is limited to just 150 members, which will be increased slowly. These “influencers” as Ryan Roslansky, LinkedIn’s head of content products calls them, will contribute articles regularly and anyone following them get to read them and comment on them. Besides, writing articles, the ‘influencers will also be able to share photos, videos, links and SlideShare files with their followers.

“We think that content is one way that we can make users more productive and successful on LinkedIn. When you come on LinkedIn, we show you stuff that you need to pay attention to, to be better at your job,” Roslansky said in a statement. “We see this as a natural evolution. You can follow a company, an industry, a publisher, etc. — being able to follow other members and what they say on LinkedIn is just the next step.”

The current list of contributors includes Barack Obama, Mitt Romney and Richard Branson.

Via: Wired, CNET