How would you improve LinkedIn messenger?

Clarifying questions:

• Do we have any specific use case that we want to solve for? (prioritise on you own)
• What is the end goal that we are targeting over here? (Boosting user engagement)
• There are multiple Linkedin products like Linkedin Learning, Linkedin Sales Navigator, Linkedin recruiter). For the purpose of this exercise we will solve for the core product.
• Do we want to improve this feature for web or app? (both)
• Do we have any specific user segment that we are targeting? (No prioritise on your own)
• Any specific geography? Are we planning to solve for geography related issues?

Goal:

Linkedin is a social networking platform that connects professionals across industries, geographies and demographics.

Linkedin Messenger’s end goal ties in directly with the core mission of the company. To help individuals connect on a more personal level (one to one)

We are trying to boost user engagement on our platforms as user-engagement is the core currency on which a social networking platform runs

User segments:

Building user cohorts on the basis of the type of usecases that a person will use Linkedin for:

We will prioritise on the basis of who uses Linkedin Messenger the most.

Jobseekers:

Students/ Professionals that are on the platform to land jobs.

Recruiters/ Hiring managers:

Professionals looking to hire people

Professional networkers:

People on the platform who are trying to join/ create / build a professional community

Sales professionals: (not really in our scope because we are trying to solve for the core product and not Linkedin Sales Navigator)

People reaching out to other people for B2B /B2C sales

CXO & Founders:

Startup leaders or people in the top hierarchies who are trying to build a brand

Prioritisations:

Jobseekers & Community networkers / Builders

Painpoints:

• can only send messages to connections (have the options of inmail credits with a premium account)
• limited inmails that can be sent from a free account (solved for with a premium account)
• the other person not reverting
• don’t know who they should reach out to from a particular company / industry
• struggle with an opening message / hesitate to reach out
• hard to keep track of messages / reach outs , people miss out on messages that they have received or might have forgotten to reply.

we will prioritise on the basis of how big a pain point it is and will solving it, tie in with our core end goal.

Features:

Linkedin Karma (Solves for painpoint #3 & #4): (Low effort, high reach, moderate impact) P1

Very similar to reddit’s Karma score. This karma score of an individual Linkedin account would track the amount of Linkedin activity that account engages in. This karma score would be visible for every Linkedin profile. The more a person engages with posts (creates, comments, reacts etc.), messages frequently and to more number of people on Linkedin messenger, the higher would be their karma score.

When a user would be in a dilemma about who they should reach out to, they can prioritise on the basis of karma score when they are sending a message/ connection request. A higher karma score would automatically increase your chances of a revert.

message scheduler with AI: (Moderate reach, high impact, moderate tech effort) P2

People struggle with reaching out to a large number of people as it is cumbersome to type the same message everytime and customise it for every reach out.

This AI driven feature would be a part of Linkedin messenger where the user will with the help of AI draft an opening message. Fields like company name, reached out person’s name would be kept as variables. There would also be an option to auto-send this message everytime a user connects with someone new.

Everytime a user’s connection request would be accepted, the user would get a notification from the message scheduler “ Hey, Mr. X has accepted your request. Do you want to reach out to him?”. If the user accepts the notification, the scheduler would automatically send the stored message with the variables changed to the person.

There can be an option to save multiple message formats later down the line, with the user’s discretion, one format can be selected.

You can also attach files like (resumes and cover letters) to these messages.

Follow-up reminders: (moderate reach, moderate impact, moderate effort) P3

Analytics driven reminder engine that would remind the user in the following three cases:

• sent a message but received no response (remind the user to follow up after 3 days)
• user hasn’t replied (remind to revert after 3 days)
• connected with someone but still hasn’t reached out (remind weekly)

We can have a Reminder tab under Linkedin messages where these reminders would be sent. The user would receive a notification.

We can also integrate this with the AI message scheduler so that once the user has a reminder they have an option to auto-send a message.

Tradeoffs:

• Linkedin Karma could paint a skewed picture (some people might post/ comment a lot but might not use messenger)
• People might not like frequent reminders and get irritated. (would have to build an opt-in / opt-out feature)
• AI messages would lose the human touch and might sound very robotic and artificial. In terms of job seekers, how would you diffrentiate between a serious vs non-serious candidates)

Success Metrics:

• DAU of Linkedin messenger (buckets of karma score: High, Medium, Low)
• Total number of Linkedin message reach outs for new connections (weekly)
• people opted-in vs opted out for reminders (monthly)
• CTR of Linkedin messenger reminders

Clarification

• What is our goal for this improvement?  —> Ensure adoption and engagement
• Are we focused on the mobile of the desktop app? —> You can decide
• What is the current messenger usage goal that we are trying to beat? 

Goals

• Improve messenger to increase usage / engagement
• Focus on greater usage of the messenger 

Users

Lets start by looking at the users of messenger

• Members - Regular users that use LinkedIn to message their network for requests
• Sales - People that message members with the intent to sell something or business development
• Recruiters - People that reach out to individuals with job offers

Given that our focus is to increase usage and engagement I am going to focus on regular members as that is the biggest number of users.

Use Cases

1. Awareness - Be aware of the messages I have received.

2. Reminders - Reminders to respond to messages incase they have been missed

3. Organize - Sort messages based on priority and responding timeline and organize messages from connections and from non-connections

4. Labels - Label messages based request type - Introduction, Job, Sales, and so on

5. Quick Responses - respond to messages quickly and effectively

6. Introductions - Make introduction of your connections within your network to other members.

7. Schedule - Reach connections /contacts at specific times of the day or week when they are less likely to be busy (Send later or schedule send)

8. Preferences - Manage the type of messages you want to receive

Lets score the above use cases based on their reach / impact / cost where

• Reach - number of members that will benefit from the use cases
• Impact - How much value would users get out of it
• Cost - the complexity of implementing this 

From the above use cases, I would like to focus on the use case of Introductions. Making Introductions easier for the person asking, person making and the person being introduced to can be made more seamless on LinkedIn. Working on this use case will increase the network density of LinkedIn for its members and will make it a more sticky network that increases overall value to each member

Solutions 

Three parties in the Introduction process

• Requester - The person asking for the introduction
• Facilitator - The person making the introduction 
• Target - The person getting introduced to

• Make requests for introductions easy. 
  • Create a new type of message - Introduction. It would be a template that would cover 
  • context as to why introduction is needed 
  • background on the requester. 
  • Custom message that facilitator can add before The member making the request can add their custom message to the template and forward the request
• Make facilitator checkins easier
  • Facilitator can check in and deliver the message to the Target
  • Target can agree to being introduced
• Make the introduction
  • Connect requestor with target

Tradeoffs

• Some people might want to customize their introductions to applying templates might detract from the personal touch. We can overcome this by making the template optional. 

Metrics

• # of introductions made via template
• # of messages sent by users that use Template
• Weekly Active Usage of LinkedIn by folks that use the Introduction template

Summary

To improve LinkedIN messages I would focus on the regular members and improve the introduction use case. Through this use case we will make it easier to ask for introductions, make introductions and respond to introductions. This would increase the network density for LinkediN members and would also ensure higher engagement or value that members extract from the LinkedIn offering.

How to improve Linkedin Messaging?

Mission : LinkedIn mission is for corporate individuals to connect and express themselves.

It provides opportunities for job seekers to connect with recruiters or for getting referrals.

Scope : For this problem , limiting the scope only to LinkedIn messaging.

Goal : There can be multiple goals when one think of improving LinkedIn messaging.

I would want to focus on Engagement and Retention majorly. Because that will also solve for revenue and acquisition indirectly.

Persona/ User Groups

Here I would segregate user groups based on the need and level of usage.

1. Active Users : Users who use messaging very frequently for reaching out to connect with recruiters or seeking referrals  .
2. Less Active or Passive Users : Users who login once in a week or month to check for incoming messages and reply to important ones.

Based on Need :

1. Recruiters
2. Job Seekers
3. Sales Professional
4. Influencers
5. Individuals looking to connect with like minded individuals

Preferred User Group : Less Active users who use LinkedIn to mostly browse the feed and sometimes use messaging to check on incoming messages or reply to important ones.

Needs/Pain Points :

1. Users coming after longer time finds it difficult to understand which message is important and which one can be ignored.
2. Gmail notifications about LinkedIn messaging is not very clear if its a in mail or a personal message.
3. There is no options to get a weekly or monthly summary view.
4. Users are not very sure of the benefit they would get out of LinkedIn messaging and why they should use it frequently

Prioritized user needs or pain point : I want to address the experience pain point which would make it easier for users to customize the messaging as per their convenience.So that they find it easier to use and come back more frequently.

Solutions: 

1. Users get proper gmail notification with subject line mentioning the category of the message like Inmail , Recruiter’s message , personal message etc.
2. From the list of unread messages , one can flag the selected message for responding later.
3. Users does get an option to segregate their messages based on different categories like group , individual or in mail messages.
4. Users given options to customize the view so that user can see messages on weekly or monthly basis in Linkedin Messaging as well as via mail.
5. Users when don’t check on linkedin messaging for longer time  then users are shown a short video tutorial over the things which they can achieve if they use LinkedIn messaging. Same can be sent via mail. (However the frequency of such notification should be thought off and can be snoozed or dismissed by user if he is not interested) .

For phase 1 improvements , analyzing  the cost effort and impact estimates following 2 features I would like to add first.

1. Email with subject line mentioning the type of mail.
2. Message view divided into different categories.

Trade Offs

1. Major trade offs I see here is user not checking mail in Linkedin Messaging after getting the detailed notification stating if its a in mail or a personal message.

Success Metrics

1. % of passive users using LinkedIn messages before and after the changes.
2. Increase in average session duration as compared to previous.
3. Weekly frequency of user sessions before and after change.

Summary

Linkedin with a mission of connecting corporate individuals is looking to enhance its messenger experience for the users who don’t use it very frequently and find it hard to keep up with the unread messages. Sending the email notifications with detailed subject line and the messaging view with clear separation of individual ,group and in mail messaging is considered in first line of improvements.