It was announced recently that LinkedIn has now added live video to their suite of offerings. I remember chatting about the possibility of live video in 2017 when native video became available. You couldn’t call me Nostradamus. With all of the the other major platforms offering live video (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube), it was only a matter of time.

It seems that LinkedIn is constantly adding functionality to improve its user experience, but there are still four functions that are on my LinkedIn wish-list. 

1. Calendar Functionality

I really wish that LinkedIn had calendar functionality similar to Facebook Messenger or SMS, so that when someone writes a date for a particular meeting you can then click on it and add it straight into to your calendar.

Last week, a colleague arranged a meeting with me in a LinkedIn message. I became distracted and forgot to add it into my diary manually. My fault, absolutely and I forgot about the meeting. Lucky they were understanding. However, if I could have clicked within that LinkedIn message to add the details straight into my diary at the time that I received them, there would be much less room left for human error.

2. Out-Of-Office Messages

This has been discussed before on LinkedIn, but I really needed this function recently when I was on annual leave for a month and not checking my phone. It would have been so helpful to be able to turn on an out-of-office message to let people know that I was away and when I could attend to their message.

Sure, you can post an update before you leave, but most people won’t remember your whereabouts if they actually happen to see your post. It can seem rude not to respond to someone’s message, and more so from the perspective of a prospective customer or employer or a current customer with an issue.

Out-of-office functionality would definitely help to manage expectations and provide details of who else can be contacted if the matter is urgent.

3. Video Conferencing

The next step of LinkedIn video surely needs to be video conferencing. It would be fantastic to be able to have video conference calls with LinkedIn connections within the platform.

Video meetings could also tie in with the calendar functionality mentioned previously. This functionality would help to facilitate LinkedIn users to enhance their relationships with key contacts.

From a business perspective live video chat functionality would add a whole new layer of depth to the user experience.

It’s only a matter of time for this functionality to become available in line with many of the other major platforms (Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram) already have.

4. Event Functionality

Being able to create events and invite relevant people from your LinkedIn network would be extremely helpful promoting it to a really targeted audience. Again, the event could also align with the calendar functionality already mentioned.

Clicking on an accepted event invitation can add it directly into your calendar.

Of course, there is the risk that this functionality could be used in a spammy way, but these are just ideas at this stage and need much greater development.

In Conclusion

There are the four main functions on my LinkedIn wish-list at this particular point in time (calendar functionality, out-of-office messaging, video conferencing and event functionality).

It is clear that LinkedIn is listening to its audience and adding greater functionality to help its users, and they should be commended for that.

LinkedIn has come such a long way over the past few years. It has become a really dynamic and interesting platform with great content and content creators.

The platform continues to grow in popularity because it is constantly evolving along with the needs of its users. I have my fingers crossed that it includes some (or all) of these functions in the future.

What functions do you think are missing from LinkedIn?