LinkedIn Premium Account Changes

By Tim Priebe on June 10, 2014

By Tim Priebe on June 10, 2014

If there’s anything constant in the world of social media, it’s change. Although LinkedIn tends to be more stable than some other platforms, it goes through its share of changes as well. June 4, 2014, LinkedIn made several significant changes for premium members.

Premium Spotlight

First off, LinkedIn is introducing a new starter package known as Premium Spotlight. Previously, the least expensive paid Premium account available was the Business account, at $23.99 a month if paid annually, or $29.99 if paid monthly.

The new package is just $7.99 if paid annually, or $9.99 if paid monthly. Best of all, it has all the new features we go over below.

For the most up to date package options, visit the official LinkedIn Premium plan comparison page.

More Visual

Premium members now have a larger profile photo, a large profile header, and a background image. The background image is similar to the cover image on Facebook and Google+ introduced back in 2012.

You can select from LinkedIn’s built-in background images, or upload your own. The image should be 1400 pixels x 415 pixels, less than 4 MB, and has to be a JPG, GIF, or PNG. In my tests, animated GIF files had the animation stripped out.

According to LinkedIn, in a few months all members will be able to add a custom profile background.

Top Keyword Suggestions

LinkedIn will now suggest what it feels are the best keywords for your summary to help you show up more often in your search. As with all automatically suggested keywords, your mileage will vary.

To see the keyword suggestions, just start editing the Summary section of your profile. Make sure you use your discretion, and don’t blindly accept the keywords that LinkedIn suggests.

Larger Search Listings

LinkedIn also promises that premium members will stand out in search results with listings twice the size of a free member’s.

LinkedIn’s instructions say, “Just keep Premium Profile turned on to benefit from this feature.” To turn on Premium Profile, you edit your profile, then click the pen next to the word “Premium” on the top right.

Once you’ve done that, you’ll see the option to enable both Premium Profile and Open Profile. To get the larger search listing, make sure Premium Profile is checked, then click save.

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4 Comments

  1. Avatar Matt McNeil on June 10, 2014 at 9:27 am

    Finally — an affordable AND improved version of LinkedIn.com!

    Thanks for the heads up, Tim!

    Reply
  2. Avatar Larry Schachter on July 23, 2014 at 12:41 pm

    Tim:

    You seem to know about this. I went looking for the $7.99 and $23.99 accounts, and the seem to no longer exist. Only Business account is now called Business Plus, and it’s $60/mo.
    It was confirmed via LinkedIn support, but they appear to be a bunch of boneheads.

    Can you confirm?

    Reply
    • Tim Priebe Tim Priebe on August 4, 2014 at 12:28 am

      LinkedIn support doesn’t seem to give consistent answers, that’s for sure. It’s hard to say without looking at it with you, but I suspect there are two things at play here:

      1. If you already have a paid, premium account, they won’t show you the accounts levels below yours on that comparison page.

      2. It sounds like you have Monthly pricing selected instead of annual. The $7.99 and $23.99 prices are if you select Annual payments.

      Reply

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