LinkedIn, the social network for professionals, is to unveil a new feature which allows its users to name-check and link companies and people in the content they post onto their profiles.

As with Facebook, the tool will suggest names of businesses and individuals as the user types. These can then be selected as necessary. Once the message or status update has been published, the user or company mentioned will receive an alert; again, much in the same way that Facebook works.

Angela Yoonjeong Yang, who is LinkedIn’s Associate Product Manager, said in a blog post:

“LinkedIn members are involved in millions of conversations across LinkedIn day after day. That’s why we want to make it even easier for you to start those conversations, share knowledge with one another and ultimately become even better at what you do.”

Yang went on to explain how ‘mentions’ would make it simpler for users to initiate conversations and respond promptly when another user does the same.

A spokesperson from LinkedIn also spoke about the feature’s introduction, saying:

“We are currently testing the ability for members to directly mention each other in professional conversations on LinkedIn. This test is part of our ongoing efforts to help members further engage with their networks in meaningful ways across the LinkedIn platform.”

The new announcement from the site comes not long after it unveiled ‘Endorsements’, a feature that gives users the ability to endorse skills listed by other members on their page.

Earlier this year, the B2B Marketing Benchmarks, Budgets and Trends report revealed that, for businesses looking to make the most of content marketing, LinkedIn had surpassed its rivals, Twitter and Facebook, in terms of popularity. While the site’s new feature is still in the testing phase, it is expected to further reinforce this stronghold.

Graeme Parton

Graeme has experience creating content for online sources and for the radio, and at university he studied Multimedia Journalism.