Welcome to Your Professional Community: LinkedIn

Why LinkedIn?

All grand ideas start small and take time to construct. In the case of co-founder Reid Hoffman, his billion-dollar idea started out in the comfort of his living room in 2002 (Potter 2017). The main objective of this idea was to create a social media platform geared strictly to professionals and those seeking employment. Reid proceeded to expand his grand idea with some founding members of PayPal and Socialnet.com and gathered: Allen Blue, Konstantin Guericke, Eric Ly and Jean-Luc Vaillant (LinkedIn Newsroom Website: About Us). On May 5th, 2003, all 5 members officially launched the reputed, professional networking platform: LinkedIn. It was a very slow start at first. At the end of the first month of full operation, LinkedIn had a total of 4,500 members in the network, and on a bad day, it would only get about 20 signups per day. Nevertheless, it quickly gained an investment offer from Sequoia Capital (LinkedIn Newsroom Website: About Us).

Reaching its 17th anniversary this upcoming May of 2020, LinkedIn is one of the oldest mainstream social platforms, older than Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube (Potter 2017). Since its launch, the platform went through various technological renovations with its desktop designs and navigation system of its website. In 2017, it launched its largest redesign since the company’s start. This overhaul delivered a “simplified LinkedIn experience that’s faster, easier to navigate, and more intuitive”. (LinkedIn Newsroom Website: About Us)

Unlike other social media networks, such as Facebook and Instagram which are created and used for recreational purposes, LinkedIn’s focus is to emphasize and create a networking system for professionals, where they can connect and virtually interact (Gregersen 2019). These interactions are meant to effectuate employment for those recruiting and for those seeking employment in the real world.  

Getting Started on LinkedIn:

As a first-time user, signing up is fairly simple and requires few steps. There are two options to create a login: either through an email address or through a Google Account. This direct linkage to Google was inevitable, as LinkedIn, at the start of its launch, would hire seasoned executives from companies such as Microsoft, PayPal, Google, Yahoo and Electronic Arts as their management team, therefore creating this communal bond. (Potter 2017). Such exposure also lead to the new ownership of LinkedIn in 2016, when Microsoft purchased the company for a massive $26.6 billion dollars. (Tweedie 2016)

The user interface design is quite simplistic, as well as its aesthetic implications, with every page made up of shades of light blues (the logo itself made up of a light pantone blue), with a dynamic navigation toolbar at the top of the page for easy steering through each webpage. As for content, the homepage layout consists of a timeline (similar to that of Facebook’s) made up of articles, pages users follow, advertisements, images, videos and a like.

In 2018, LinkedIn introduced the “LinkedIn Pages” feature which allows users to follow companies, from small corporations to larger enterprises, to create a more engaging community “to foster constructive conversations with LinkedIn’s community of more than 590 million members and 30 million Pages” (Agarwal 2018). LinkedIn’s Business Blog described this new feature as a way to “help organizations authentically connect with members, grow their business and build lasting connections“. (Agarwal 2018) This feature has a big resemblance to the Facebook feature “Facebook Groups”, where profile users can follow a page of their interest, this can be: a band, an artist, a celebrity, a television series, and the list goes on, by simply “liking” the page.

There are other features that resemble other social networking platforms, another example would be the built-in messenger application located at the far right, bottom of the page. This feature allows users to instantly contact and communicate with other users that are apart of their network, in other words “friends-list”. This feature and layout is very similar to that of Facebook and was introduced to LinkedIn in 2015 by Microsoft. (Hull 2015)

LinkedIn provides knowledge articles and learning videos that provide users to virtual courses on an various topics and softwares of the business world. Most of these courses are not free, but by being a LinkedIn user, you can receive a free one-week trial to test this great feature out. These topics range from simple “how to create a CV” to videos demonstrating how to use Microsoft Office 365 and its many applications. The fraction of the price to pay for these online courses does not come close to the extensive knowledge gained through these virtual seminars. All the knowledge gained through these seminars appear on users profile as skills and are important tools and information that will apply to anyone in any work field.

LinkedIn User Statistics

LinkedIn has over 575 million users with more than 260 million monthly active users. (Osman 2020) College and University students can also take great advantage of this platform and according to Maddy Osman’s article published on Kinsta, Mind-Blowing LinkedIn Statistics and Facts, they are amongst the most popular users within this professional community. Furthermore, LinkedIn statistics have revealed that “50% of college graduates in the U.S are LinkedIn users while only 9% of users do not surpass a high school level of education”. (Osman 2020) These numbers definitely demonstrate a particular intended audience whether it is intentional or not.  It displays a level of hierarchy in the networking platform, that gives off the impression that only those with a higher level of education, can possibly be accepted within this professional community, and gain access and exposure to the big successful enterprises and the people that run it.

LinkedIn Revenue

Prior to the expansion of LinkedIn, its services and information were available without a cost to the general public. In order for the company to become cost efficient, Linkedin began charging to potential employers premium packages. Currently, roughly 40% of LinkedIn consumers pay to have access to LinkedIn Premium consisting of the following four price tiers (Osman 2020):

*Premium Career: 29.99$ per month

*Premium Business: 59.99$ per month

*Sales Navigator Pro: 79.99$ per month 

*Recruiter Lite (Hiring): 119.95$ per month 

For those who sign up with Premium Career, some advantages include five InMail messages monthly admissions, in-demand videos, knowledge about who viewed one’s profile, the number of searches one has surfaced, important job related information (ie salary, benefits), etc. (Osman 2020)

For users who are yet to be employed, browsing and exploring LinkedIn in hopes to find a successful career may find this a little troubling and unfair. This can bring up ethical questions such as: Does paying more result in a better and faster employment? Will this mean that I will have more advantage than those who have a free account?

Although LinkedIn had a slow start, it quickly rose to becoming one of the world’s most leading and trusting networking platform for many professionals worldwide and it remains to do so, year after year, always trying to improve its content and keep up to date with the ever so progressing corporate world.

Bibliography

• “About Us.” LinkedIn Newsroom, news.linkedin.com/about-us#2003. Accessed 23 Feb 2020.
• Agarwal, Sparsh. “Introducing The New LinkedIn Pages.” LinkedIn Marketing Blog, 13 Nov. 2018, business.linkedin.com/marketing-solutions/blog/linkedin-news/2018/introducing-the-new-linkedin-pages.
• Gregersen, Erik. “LinkedIn.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., 31 Jan. 2019, www.britannica.com/topic/LinkedIn.
• Hull, Mark. “New Messaging Experience Comes to LinkedIn, Finally!” LinkedIn Official Blog, 1 Sept. 2015, blog.linkedin.com/2015/09/01/new-messaging-experience-comes-to-linkedin-finally.
• Osman, Maddy. “Mind-Blowing LinkedIn Statistics and Facts (2020).” Kinsta Managed WordPress Hosting, 1 Jan. 2020, kinsta.com/blog/linkedin-statistics/.
• Potter, James. “The History of LinkedIn.” The Linked In Man, 22 Jan. 2017, thelinkedinman.com/history-linkedin/.
• Tweedie, Steven. “MICROSOFT BUYS LINKEDIN FOR $26.2 BILLION.” Business Insider, Business Insider, 13 June 2016, www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-buys-linkedin-2016-6.