LinkedIn Soft Launches its New ‘Funny’ Reaction

According to LinkedIn, the ‘Funny’ Reaction is currently being rolled out, and isn’t available to everyone just yet.

But it is definitely on its way, giving you a simple way to express that a LinkedIn post ‘made you laugh, felt humorous, or offered light-hearted fun in a professional context.’

Professional context has long been the core principal that LinkedIn wants to emphasise, because there’s a lot of irrelevant junk on the platform, posted by users seeking attention.

The practice of ‘Growth Hacking’ or like farming by posting heartfelt or amusing stories on Linkedin has been around almost as long as the platform itself, being largely ignored by the product development team as a quirk rather than a flaw.

The introduction of the ‘Funny’ reaction will most likely increase the amount of non-professional content designed to evoke a steady stream of reactions and comments, further diluting the suit-and-tie business environment Linkedin so desperately wants to nurture.

Only time will tell if this is part of a wider strategy to wall off the ever more popular spam posts, or a misguided attempt at increasing overall platform engagement.