Today I opened up my inbox and saw I had a message from a LinkedIn contact. “Maybe he’s interested in my services!” I thought. Of course, I couldn’t tell what he had written, because all the subject line said was, “John sent you a new message.” And all the body of the email had was a line saying “You have 1 new message” – along with John’s head shot and partial headline. I had to click “View Message” to find out what the heck this guy wanted to talk about.

I was already angry by the time I clicked “View Message” to be brought to the LinkedIn website. And when I got there, I discovered that his message said … ready for this? …. “Thanks.”

Yep, I had wished John a happy birthday and he was thanking me. That was it.

If I had been able to see this message in my email inbox, all would be well. I could have deleted it and someday gotten around to replying to John with a thumbs up – or not.

But as of about a month ago, LinkedIn is forcing us to go to their website to read our mail.

Strangely, I haven’t found anyone talking about this on the interwebs. Am I the only person who doesn’t like this change? I mean, I don’t usually write rants in my weekly blog, but this new messaging functionality is not working for me.

Here’s What I Don’t Like:

1. I have to click on a message and go to LinkedIn without knowing whether I want to read the message. It’s often a waste of time.

2. Flagging messages for follow-up has become less integrated. I can flag the message in my inbox, but when I want to follow up, I need to go to the LinkedIn platform to remind myself what the conversation was.

3. LinkedIn seems to be pushing people to subscribe to LinkedIn Premium in order to have their messages seen. The thing is, if someone sends me an inMail, I can view the entire message. So I’m encouraged to send inMails, which are only available through LinkedIn Premium, instead of sending regular messages which can’t be read from people’s inboxes.

4. I find myself not wanting to click, not wanting to go to LinkedIn. Since it’s my job, I do it. But what about the people receiving my messages? Will they open them? I’m afraid fewer and fewer of my non-inMail communications will be read as people get tired of blindly clicking on “View Message.”

5. LinkedIn didn’t send any notification that I know of to their subscribers letting us know about this change. For a while after the Microsoft merger, communications from LinkedIn seemed to have gotten better. They were announcing changes before they happened! Recently, however, there have been no announcements, no notifications. I don’t like being in the dark, especially as someone whose job it is to advise people about changes in the LinkedIn platform.

Take Action

Am I alone here? Anyone else who is peeved by this change? Or has the collective LinkedIn community thrown its hands up in the air on this one? In the past, when enough people have complained about a change, LinkedIn has reverted back to the preferred functionality. Perhaps we can change the way our emails are appearing? If you’re behind me, please let LinkedIn (and others) know!

Here’s How to Send Feedback to LinkedIn

To send your feedback to LinkedIn, visit LinkedIn Help at https://www.linkedin.com/help/linkedin/solve/feedback and suggest they improve this feature. You could write something like this:

Area of Feedback: Message Notifications

Your Question: LinkedIn, please change the message notifications back to the way they were. I would like to see full messages from my connections in my email inbox again. I don’t want to have to click through to my LinkedIn account to view their message. Thank you!

Share on Social Media

If you want to share this article via social media, you might like to use the following:

What are your thoughts on LinkedIn’s new empty message notifications in your mailbox? I personally don’t want to log in to see my messages. LinkedIn, #changeitback! #linkedinhelp #linkedinfail @LinkedInHelp @LinkedIn https://goo.gl/wHzDHn

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