Allow me, as a dedicated and regular LinkedIn user with 600+ connections, and as a designer of social media strategy to discuss my reservations about this channel.
As I see it , LinkedIn is like Facebook, but professionals who want to network: it’s more ‘serious’. And while it is good for social media marketing, and social media monitoring, for me the jury is still out on its real value. And this is why.
Firstly, it’s not so far a first rate networking tool – meaning there are better networking sites for each of us. The Groups are good, but of the 40-50 that I have joined, there are none that are so personal or tailored that they replace or equal a network that is specialist – for me a network like IPREX. It doesn’t mean that LinkedIn won’t become better/best; just that it isn’t yet.
Second, it’s good at following people or checking out people before you call them, that’s what I use it for, but it relies on other people putting all their information in, accurately.
And thirdly, it says it’s good for job seekers. But I actually don’t know anyone who has got a job through linkedin. There are much better sites, such as Seek. And I still advertise on Seek.com.au or Careers.com.au, when we need a new employee.
But the reality is that it’s the best social media forum for you, a business person who needs to network, after email of course. So if you agree that you need to be proficient in social media – LinkedIn is a good place to start.
We hold training sessions on LinkedIn, for groups who want to use it as a marketing tool. For those people we advise that LinkedIn is good if it is used in conjunction with other channels, such as Twitter, blogs and of course a website to capture data or house a paywall.
