LinkedIn Groups Gets A Facelift

LinkedIn is sneaky. You would think that a site that just announced it reached the 70 million user mark would be hard to keep off the radar but sometimes it feels that way. Just check out how many social media ‘experts’ and ‘gurus’ admit that they need to work on their Linkedin presence more. In terms of being cool it comes in a distant third to Facebook and Twitter for sure.

However it is perceived, one of the aspects of LinkedIn that gets plenty of play is the Group feature. This allows for users to create affinity groups and have discussions around topics that are targeted and available to those who want to join. With over 650,000 of these groups formed LinkedIn has upgraded its offering. Check out this video for a good description of the changes.

In a nutshell, LinkedIn has made the interface for Groups slicker and has created more opportunities to learn about other group members and their activities. It also has joined the craze of being able to ‘Like’ something. The LinkedIn blog explains:

This feature allows users to quickly peruse new content and vote either by “liking” or commenting on discussions they deem worthy of the group’s attention. Users who prefer to see all discussions sorted chronologically can just click on the “See all new discussions” link on the homepage.

It looks like a good move by LinkedIn. In fact, it has made me realize that while my own profile is “100% complete” it is woefully under utilized. How are you using LinkedIn for your day-to-day lives? What do you perceive as the differences between it and the other “social” sites. Is Linkedin more about being social or networking, in your opinion?