LinkedIn Quick Tip: Tour the New Sharing Options

LinkedIn announced today several new updates to how you share information on the professional networking site. It adopted features you’re probably used to seeing on Twitter and Facebook.

The changes acknowledge that “most of us turn to blogs, newspapers, magazines, trade publications and more when we’re looking for the info we need,” writes Nick Dellamaggiore, a software architect at LinkedIn, in a blog post. “But just as often, we count on our colleagues and peers to point out the stuff we should read.”

Here’s what you need to know about the new features and what’s changed on the site.

[Want to read more LinkedIn tips and tricks? Check out, “LinkedIn Tips: Getting More from the Social Networking Service.]

A new name.

The “Network Updates” part of your profile—traditionally where you posted status messages no longer than 140 characters—has been renamed “Network Activity.”

Share easier.

If you’ve found an industry article that your LinkedIn connections might find interesting—or a job posting at your company—the new Network Activity box now supports posting links that include images and an article excerpt. You can edit the excerpt if it’s too long or customize it for your connections.

New privacy settings.

If you want to share a post with a specific group of people, you can assign privacy settings that do just that. You have the option to share the post with everyone that visits your LinkedIn profile, only the people you’re connected with in your network, specific groups you belong to or a specific individual.

Quick delete.

Additionally, if you noticed that your post contained a typo or spelling error, you can quickly preview, edit and delete the post before your connections view the mistake. Do this by hovering over your status update; you’ll see an “x” appear in the top right corner. Click it to delete your post.

Re-share links.

Much like Twitter’s retweet function and Facebook’s “share” button, you can share an interesting link that one of your connections posts.

When you click the “share” button on a post, you have the option to add a personal comment to it and choose whether you want to post it to your updates, to a group or to a set of individuals. And like your personal updates, you can choose the privacy setting. The re-shared article will attribute the post to the person who shared it with you.

Staff Writer Kristin Burnham covers consumer Web and social technologies for CIO.com. She writes frequently on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Google. You can follow her on Twitter: @kmburnham.