When I think of LinkedIn, I envision suits, small thumbnails, and suggestions for people to connect to. LinkedIn is widely known as the professional social media platform whose primary focus is to enable people or businesses connect and network. Excerpted from the official mission statement, LinkedIn’s mission is to “…connect the world’s professionals to enable them to be more productive and successful.” Given the broad scope, what other uses for LinkedIn are there?
I myself have solely used LinkedIn as a connector for professional ties, then again, I am sure that I am not using it to its maximum capabilities.
In its nascence LinkedIn simply connected individuals, then it slowly evolved to include groups, companies, universities, etc. Surely these different constituencies have more uses for social media, and naturally LinkedIn augmented its capabilities to accommodate for them. Along the way it has also helped enhance the individual experience too. It may make it useful to separate the other uses for LinkedIn into segments of individuals and groups/organizations.
Other Uses for LinkedIn: Individuals
LinkedIn isn’t all networking and connecting, though it may be hard to see it for something else. LinkedIn can be a great place where you explore interests with individuals that share a commonality. Joining a group to speak glowingly about a cause, company, organization, or initiative is another use for LinkedIn. I have seen this many times, individuals that belong to Ohio University campus organizations help promote and laud their experiences within the group.
One regularly overlooked use for LinkedIn, using it as a medium to gain industry information and a regular news source. I know of many people who use social media accounts partially for news sources purposes, so this is not too far-fetched. Whenever I visit the LinkedIn site I succumb to reading the industry articles because I find them exceptionally interesting. I know that I cannot be alone in this admission (I hope).
Other Uses for LinkedIn: Groups/Organizations
As I scroll down my LinkedIn home page, I see now more than ever a heavy group/organization influence. Nowhere in my social media presence is the friend-of-mine concept more prevalent than on my LinkedIn feed. Companies and the like have found other uses for LinkedIn in the form of informing their audience. Each time I visit my LinkedIn profile, a group/organization has liked, shared, or promoted content that has some relation to their business. This tactic, without directly networking or connection, helps change perceptions of the company. The company becomes useful and not an obtrusion.
Groups/organizations also use LinkedIn to market. Since LinkedIn does not lend itself to random status updates or soliloquies about your opinions on subjects (thankfully), many organizations use it as spigot to funnel information through. Many of the entities promote their own content or services through sponsoring stories. Our class intends to use LinkedIn as a confluence for other channels such as our blog ohiomarketingstudents.com and Facebook accounts.
Using LinkedIn as a medium to sell to other groups/organizations is on the rise. I see this as the ultimate goal for groups/organizations in the other uses for LinkedIn realm, because businesses ultimately want to drive conversions. The B2B selling on LinkedIn has risen and the industry is taking notice.
There seems to be a few uses for LinkedIn that do not have the end goal of hawking a job. Which leads me to the question, what other uses for LinkedIn have you taken advantage of? Visit our LinkedIn account to see how we capitalize on the multiple uses of LinkedIn.
Whether you are an organization or an individual, LinkedIn’ services transcend networking and connecting. In case that does not interest you, get out there and network!
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