LinkedIn to Release Intra-Company Communication Tools

As the primary social network for professionals, LinkedIn strives to connect its users to potential employers or other professionals within their industry. As more LinkedIn users develop professional relationships, it is inevitable that they’ll include many of their co-workers in their network.

In order to manage the streams of inter-office communication, LinkedIn is reportedly working on new tools to help co-workers stay connected. According to a recent report from Re/code, the company is hard at work on products that will help companies “share its content with specific groups of employees”
while also developing a new app for a similar purpose.

The first product will enable LinkedIn users to send InMail. InMail allows LinkedIn users to “reach anyone on LinkedIn, no introduction or contact info required.” InMail also encourages users to upload their contact information on a company database, which will be visible to co-workers on LinkedIn.

While superficially similar to Facebook’s new corporate-oriented “Facebook at Work,” LinkedIn’s new tools differ significantly from that of its rival. Most strikingly, LinkedIn’s new intra-office communication tools will not include a chat platform, which Facebook at Work boasts.

LinkedIn is also looking into improving content sharing “directly with specific groups of employees” within companies. This new feature, which offers direct and targeted sharing, is expected to enter its testing phase by the end of this quarter.

According to Re/code, LinkedIn hopes this new feature will increase resharing on the platform.

For example, if a company wants to hire new mobile engineers, it could share a posting about the company’s engineering philosophy directly to its existing engineers in the hope they will pass it along. The assumption is that those employees will have the most relevant network for that specific message.

The Re/code report comes during a very productive and competitive time for LinkedIn. With a better and faster search engine already in place, as well as their blogging tool expanding beyond the United States, this latest development for LinkedIn seems to further confirm that they are starting off 2015 in a major way.

With both services rolling out, it should be interesting to see whether companies are more swayed by Facebook’s superior user base or LinkedIn’s professional atmosphere and background.

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