LinkedIn: The Workplace Favourite

LinkedIn is a social media tool that was launched in 2002 and is currently owned by Microsoft. It is commonly used by several workplaces, from schools to hospitals. With over 550 million professional profiles, LinkedIn is one of the most popular sites for job advertising and personal professional profiling.

Users as young as 16 can create a LinkedIn Profile.

Main Tools

The main tools LinkedIn has that can be used by users include:

• The use of the ‘Connections’ tab that allows you to see possible organisations that you can apply at, organisations that have visited your profile.
•  The ability for recruiters to find target employees using the LeadFuse tool.
• The ability for companies to purchase followers of high-quality profiles in order to look more appealing to users, using the tool named Buy Followers Guide.
• The eLink pro tool which allows companies to buy automatic visits to profiles so that profiles are more likely to visit their company profile.
• Various other tools are present, that allows more reach by companies through advertising, and more opportunities displayed to users. Click here to see a full list of tools that may help your company or future.

Competitors

There are numerous competitors to LinkedIn, some of which include Facebook and CareerBuilder. Overtime, though Facebook is a more social platform, companies have used Facebook to view recruits’ profiles and social background. However, due to its lack of concrete detail on professional background, LinkedIn is the preferred platform by companies.

When comparing LinkedIn to CareerBuilder and other business-oriented social media platforms, LinkedIn’s tools of video livestreaming services for businesses and ‘Ask Me Anything’ events (often streamed) gives a deeper insight to users seeking a job, making it a better choice of media than other contenders. The tool of allowing voice messaging between users and companies, and the ability for companies to view their visiting profiles has created a strong and smoothly integrated advertising network in LinkedIn, being a strong competitor to platforms like CareerBuilder which is often cluttered with ads, decreasing user satisfaction.

Further, LinkedIn can be used on phones, being readily accessible to users, while platforms like CareerBuilder cannot. Further, LinkedIn’s accessibility has increased as this Microsoft-owned company has now been integrated into Microsoft Dynamics 365, accessible on phones. While both CareerBuilder, LinkedIn and many other business platforms are simple to use, the exclusive features of LinkedIn make it a business and user favourite, and an important and at times inevitable part of one’s professional life.

Security and Privacy

Posting professional and personal information on LinkedIn has raised various privacy and security concerns. Some include the presence of fraudulent companies, phishing campaigns and the need to upload highly personal information in order to have full advantage in the advertising network whilst decreasing security safety. Whilst many methods are available in order to increase security and privacy, including two-factor authentication and the ability to report possible fraudulent companies and phishing campaigns, users are still encouraged to use LinkedIn with caution, and not upload personal phone numbers, email addresses or home addresses.