Is LinkedIn turning into Facebook? Is it still useful for business?

7 min readAug 2, 2022

Is LinkedIn turning into Facebook? Is it still useful for business?

If you want the fast answer to ‘Is LinkedIn turning into Facebook?’ — the answer is No. But I can understand why you feel that way!

I have been on LinkedIn since 21 December 2003 and Facebook since 7 November 2007 and you could say, I have seen a few changes since then.

One of the most significant on LinkedIn was when it was acquired by Microsoft in 2016 — in one of the biggest corporate acquisitions in history. Shortly thereafter, there was a software ‘update’ that removed a significant range of features — and I took action immediately! I conducted a large survey of over 100 people and the good news is, the features were re-installed — but even better, there has been a continuous increase in features ever since.

So why is LinkedIn starting to feel like Facebook?

I can suggest some reasons:

There are more personal content posts — and this could be because we are working ‘alone’ more often and need our fix of connection and relationship with one another — think of it as the ‘water-cooler’ for people working from home or remotely
The range of ‘reaction’ choices per post has increased including the blue smiley face
Posts that have the ‘care’ reaction appear to be favoured by the algorithm
There are more sponsored posts — in most cases you will see one as soon as you start scrolling through your newsfeed
There are different types of posts appearing in the newsfeed — polls, announcements, carousels, video, branded posts, and events as well as the traditional photos, jobs, etc
Groups are constantly being ‘re-released’ however they don’t quite compare with the functionality of Facebook groups
Live videos and live audio are available as well as voice and text messaging so the experience feels similar
You are probably receiving more ‘Notifications’ to keep you engaged on the platform
You may have noticed that…