15 LinkedIn Predictions from Portugal!

I want to send a huge thank you out to LinkedIn buddy Rui Pedro Caramez of @LinkedPortugal who originally wrote these predictions in Portuguese, and then translated them for us so I could post them here.  I like his predictions even more than mine! (http://linkedintobusiness.com/what-will-should-linkedin-do-for-us-in-2013/)

My comments are in dark blue…

Linkedin Profile

1. The ability to choose at least 2 industries on the profile. In several training programs held over the year, this was on of the problems pointed out. More concerns to job seekers. Pedro is right on with this.  Also, I sure would like an “other” option.  While industries is getting better, its certainly not comprehensive!  In the meantime, you can always list a different industry for each experience section.

2. The ability to separate actual and past positions in full time, part.time and freelance. This would help the analysis of a LinkedIn profile. This seems like a no-brainer.  Also – would love to be able to shift past positions around too.

3. Recommendations – the ability to have a specific link for the written recommendations to add to a blog or website http://www.linkedin.com/references?mrs=  (Tip: http://www.linkedin.com/in/caramez/references)  Except for the ability to customize your public profile URL, and the automatic customization of company URLs, LinkedIn is stingy with its ability to create unique URLS.  

4.  Skills – Hoping Linkedin would add world and national rankings about each skill according to the number of endorsements by each user, most relevant users, dominance of the skill in the country/ world.  What a great idea – especially considering the fact that most members of LinkedIn live OUTSIDE of the US.

5. Status Updates – nowadays, our Linkedin network is global. It would be fantastic if  LinkedIn would allow us to post an update according to several filters (tag, language, industry and geography) I mean – you can do it with targeted Company Updates, why not on our personal updates?

6. Tagging Linkedin users. Twitter and Facebook have this feature already.  I think what Pedro means is having something like the @ sign in twitter, the Capital letter identification in Facebook and the + on Google – but we can tag our connections – just go to Connections, Tags, Manage and create all the tags you want up to 200)   – How to do this here.

Contacts

7. Address book – the possibility to use more than 1 filter to search our network.  Or a CRM

8. When we export connections from Linkedin, it would be nice to add the city and country of each user to segment our network a lot better.  Agreed – hoping that the integration of ConnectedHQ.com will help us do that!

9. Invites – when we accept invitations, the users could have the possilbity of adding the new contacts to a tag immediately. You can!  See link above.

Communications

10. Chats or Instant Messaging  – Linkedin must integrate better ways of communication among users.  Yes yes yes – would love to host the #LinkedInChat on LinkedIn!

Groups

11. Enhancing the home page of a Linkedin group. Nowadays, groups have so many discussions everyday. A lot of these discussions are lost and quickly disappear from sight. A better discussion navigation system would help, separating a specific Linkedin today in the group (tailored br the group owner), from the most revelant discussions.  Apparently something like this is on the way.  Fingers crossed!

Companies

12. World Marketplace – Linkedin should create a marketplace where companies could sell or buy their products and services. It would be awesome to have several marketplaces according to industries.  Yes!  When I made my prediction for the Social Media Examiner I was very aware of the fact that LinkedIn has no kind of social commerce site yet like Twitter and Facebook do!

13. Company Profile Organizer. Linkedin has upgraded the company’s page and reinforced its users to follow them. It would be great to organize and manage companies according to several interests in different folders. Great feature for marketeers and job seekers.  Yes – I love the targeted updates and the ability to create unique service pages for different industries – but there is so much more we could do with followers.

14. New company page analytics.  Linkedin should add a new analysis for the company page performance. One of them could be a similar element as the personal linkedin profile, remembering the page manager to add new features to ensure maximum performance.  Yes!  More and better statistics please!

15. New events apllication. After thie removal of the linkedin events application, everyone is expecting a new feature. Look at Lanyrd.com to give us some ideas on a good concept.   Boo – what was LinkedIn thinking getting rid of Events???

Pedro Caramez (from Portugal, South Europe) is the most enthusiastic Linkedin specialist for portuguese speaking countries. In 2009, he published a sold out book about Linkedin and he is writing an upcoming book about Linkedin due to be on sale on February 2013.

Well those are Pedro’s predictions and my thoughts.  What are your thoughts about LinkedIn in 2013?