Take back control of your LinkedIn news feed

For the past couple of years or so I have become increasingly disillusioned with the LinkedIn news feed. As your network grows your feed does too, LinkedIn automatically following everyone you have a connection with. Over time the news feeds moves further and further away from your interests and what is important. It got to the point where I stopped reading it, it was meaningless, a combination of click bait ( yes I get the irony !! ) and recruitment adverts

Then I clicked ‘Improve my feed’, more by chance than a concerted action, and over the space of 2 or 3 days unfollowed 99% of people and companies that I had accumulated, and surprisingly my feed becomes relevant again, it contained stories and news I was interested. Not all click bait stories went the same way, but now they stick out as an anomaly and can be easily avoided and/or dealt with.

Unfollowing doesn’t mean unfriending, but it does mean reducing the noise to an acceptable level and focusing on what is important. So what did I reduce down to? I started with volume, of the 700+ contacts I decided I only wanted to follow a max of 50 or so and used the following criteria:-

1) Personal friends that I enjoy keeping up to date with their professional life ( as opposed to their social life )
2) People whose opinion I am interested in regardless of their industry
3) Industry leaders for their insight into their field and/or their company
4) Companies I am interested in ( similar to 3 )

The result was a much more narrowly focused news stream and an ability to review on a daily basis in about 10-15 mins. The only missing feature is ‘save for later’, but I can work around that with cut and paste.

So I cannot recommend enough that you take back control and get back from LinkedIn what it was meant to provide in the first place.