LinkedIn caves into pressure to let users include emoji and gifs
Professional social network LinkedIn has bowed to pressure and enabled the use of visual attachments in messages.
In its latest update, on top of a UI refresh, users can now attach stickers, emojis and GIFs to their chats, be it one-one-one or groups.
English users browsing on Android, iOS and desktop will immediately notice the changes to the service – users accessing LinkedIn in other languages will be implemented at a later date.
Mark Hull, director of product management at LinkedIn, said: “Many of you have been asking for this ability and we’ve taken a thoughtful approach to reflect the evolving ways professionals are communicating with one another today, as well as, the different ways our members are interacting with each other across our international markets.
“We know we can put a unique LinkedIn spin on the kinds of conversations you are already having in a professional setting, like making introductions or debriefing after a meeting. The possibilities are endless and we look forward to continue iterating and enhancing the experience.”
The site boasts 300m registered users, however it will be looking to up usage and engagement by encroaching upon Facebook Messenger’s territory of visual and personalised mobile chat.
Emoji in particular are becoming synonymous with online chatter - a study published last month found that emojis were the most common way people expressed their amusement on Facebook, more prominent than a longhand ‘haha’ or a ‘lol.