Delia Phillips
Mr. Elsesser
4/26/10
BCA
You’ll learn that LinkedIn is one of the earliest social networking sites to appear online in 2003, along with Myspace, and Facebook. The main difference between LinkedIn and other social networking sites can be found in user demographics. LinkedIn is not your teenager’s MySpace. LinkedIn is not your great aunt’s Facebook. LinkedIn means business - business connections, trends, news, and networks.
LinkedIn is the world’s largest professional network with over 65 million members and growing rapidly. LinkedIn connects you to your trusted contacts and helps you exchange knowledge, ideas, and opportunities with a broader network of professionals.
LinkedIn is really a huge database of professionals. Twitter lacks profile depth, Facebook is all over the place demographically and is also hard to find people. LinkedIn standardizes information entered by users into predefined “Profile Headline”, “Summary”, “Education”, “Company”, etc. categories. In addition to this huge database of information, LinkedIn provides a great search tool to allow you to find the person you are looking for depending on a number of very specific factors.
There is real and tangible benefit to knowing people – mentorships are formed, minds are engaged, questions are answered and asked, recommendations are made, and discussions are held. These exciting opportunities are made possible by the “social networking” we already do in real life – LinkedIn just makes it a little bit easier. Rather than collecting business cards at a conference, only to let them gather dust in your Rolodex, LinkedIn helps you remain actively connected to your network.
With LinkedIn, you can find potential companies and recruiters as well as be found by them. Even if you are happy in your job, it can’t hurt to have a minimal profile on LinkedIn and receive contacts from recruiters in your industry or specialty who may be able to help you out in the future, can it? LinkedIn is free career insurance!