LinkedIn is the platform that most corporate businesses and professionals seeking to improve their connections and business outreach are located. This platform encapsulates the people that need that edge to productivity and longevity in their careers and business outlook.
Just like Facebook and Instagram provides opportunities for individuals and businesses to have profiles and interact, it is quite the niche for linkedin. Linkedin offers its usability for forging professional connections. Either for your career or for your business. This is essential as most of the users on the platform are today’s everyday professionals. The corporations are legitimately verified according to their respective countries.
What makes LinkedIn special?
LinkedIn is an American business and employment-oriented online service that operates via websites and mobile apps. It was launched on May 5, 2003, and the platform is mainly used for professional networking, and allows job seekers to post their CVs and employers to post jobs. LinkedIn had 756 million registered members from 200 countries and territories. Did I mention that it is a subsidiary of Microsoft corporation?
So you see either you are a professional or you are a corporation/organization you have to be on LinkedIn to enhance the networking of your personal/corporate brand effectively. As a cash flow making entity, you are required to be at the market place. This ensures you gather knowledge and experience.
Brief History Of LinkedIn
The company was founded in December 2002 by Reid Hoffman and founding team members from PayPal and Socialnet.com (Allen Blue, Eric Ly, Jean-Luc Vaillant, Lee Hower, Konstantin Guericke, Stephen Beitzel, David Eves, Ian McNish, Yan Pujante, Chris Saccheri). In late 2003, Sequoia Capital led the Series A investment in the company. In August 2004, LinkedIn reached 1 million users. In March 2006, LinkedIn achieved its first month of profitability. In April 2007, LinkedIn reached 10 million users. In February 2008, LinkedIn launched a mobile version of the site. In June 2008, Sequoia Capital, Greylock Partners, and other venture capital firms purchased a 5% stake in the company for $53 million, giving the company a post-money valuation of approximately $1 billion. In November 2009, LinkedIn opened its office in Mumbai and soon thereafter in Sydney, as it started its Asia-Pacific team expansion. LinkedIn filed for an initial public offering in January 2011. In 2011, LinkedIn earned $154.6 million in advertising revenue alone, surpassing Twitter, which earned $139.5 million. LinkedIn’s fourth-quarter 2011 earnings soared because of the company’s increase in the success in the social media world.
Why Does This Affect Your Online Net-worth?
You have probably heard of the saying that your network is the same value as your net worth? This is absolutely true. LinkedIn gives you access to different professionals who do not usually go on social networking apps like Facebook and others. They are constantly on the
professional side of business getting more bright talents for their business success. These are some of the major reasons why you should be on LinkedIn:
- It is a credible source for talent recruiting.
- It helps professionals analyze real-world solutions to their problems by simply being updated on the current activities relevant to their field of expertise
- You get to establish long-lasting networks with like-minded professionals across various time zones and form viable partnerships.
- Getting across to the targeted audience that needs to hear about your cause, product, or service as it serves various niches in the business world
- LinkedIn is all professional. so there is no misconception about getting to be social or dating or looking for pictures for wallpapers.
As A Credible Source For Talent Recruiting
LinkedIn allows users to research companies, non-profit organizations, and governments they may be interested in working for. Typing the name of a company or organization in the search box causes pop-up data about the company or organization to appear. Such data may include the ratio of female to male employees, the percentage of the most common titles/positions held within the company, the location of the company’s headquarters and offices, and a list of present and former employees. In July 2011, LinkedIn launched a new feature allowing companies to include an “Apply with LinkedIn” button on job listing pages. The new plugin allowed potential employees to apply for positions using their LinkedIn profiles as resumes.
The premise for connecting with someone has shifted significantly in recent years. Prior to the 2017 new interface being launched, LinkedIn encouraged connections between people who’d already worked together, studied together, done business together or the like. Since 2017 that step has been removed from the connection request process – and users are allowed to connect with up to 30,000 people. This change means LinkedIn is a more proactive networking site, be that for job applicants trying to secure a career move or for salespeople wanting to generate new client leads.
The LinkedIn Advantage For Small Businesses
LinkedIn can help small businesses connect with customers. In the site’s parlance, two users have a “first-degree connection” when one accepts an invitation from another. People connected to each of them are “second-degree connections” and persons connected to the second-degree connections are “third-degree connections.”
This forms a user’s internal LinkedIn network, making the user’s profile more likely to appear in searches. LinkedIn’s Profinder is a marketplace where freelancers can (for a monthly subscription fee) bid for project proposals submitted by individuals and small businesses. In 2017, it had around 60,000 freelancers in more than 140 service areas, such as headshot photography, bookkeeping, or tax filing.
Why You Should Get On LinkedIn Today
The professional network is 18 years old. Its insistence on adding Instagram-style features can seem cringeworthy. Why would anyone want to put disappearing photos on their LinkedIn page? Who wants to become a LinkedIn influencer anyway? Undeterred, the company is plotting even more bells and whistles. Last week it announced a $25m “creator fund” to encourage users to post more content. TikTok-like short videos are on their way. Soon it will launch its own version of Clubhouse, the audio chatroom app that sent Silicon Valley into a tailspin last year.
Stifle your sniggering. The most peculiar thing about these efforts is that they seem to be working. In the past three years, LinkedIn has added about 200m new users. Its annual revenues have nearly doubled to $10bn. This is Facebook-level growth. Not bad for the world’s nerdiest social network. Perhaps being dorky explains some of LinkedIn’s success. The good thing about a low-key reputation is the ability to hang on to trust squandered by other social media companies. One of my friends was asked by a potential date if they could connect via LinkedIn before meeting so she could check he was who he said he was. Her rationale was that nobody fakes a LinkedIn profile. While the world frets about the destructive impact of social media, LinkedIn has been able to amass three-quarters of a billion users without pushback.
In the course of writing this column, I realized that I now have more LinkedIn contacts than I have friends on Facebook, followers on Instagram, or numbers saved on my phone.
LinkedIn has a good head start. If it keeps racking up sales it will prove itself a valuable purchase for Microsoft. Consider that Facebook has a trillion dollar market value — more than 11 times its annual revenue. If LinkedIn was valued in the same way it would be worth at least $100bn. Perhaps it wasn’t so expensive after all.
Now Does LinkedIn Know You Exist?
This rate of developmental growth and consistency put out on the LinkedIn platform ensures that you get value in its world. They are updating and adding great features that will allow professionals to do so much more not just by sending out a CV but by showing what talents and services you or your business provide.
Now does LinkedIn know you exist? You have to set up a profile for yourself or your business. These are the major points to consider:
- Ensure your profile states explicitly if you are a corporation or an individual, this is easy from the sign-up phase
- Be candid about your places of study and previous job experiences. If none, don’t be shy, put it out there as there are professionals and organizations looking for people like you as well.
- Ensure that you put up professional images that represent you or your business properly. No cheesy or romantic styled photos as it does not make you look professional except that is your field.
- Know that every professional or company interested will go through your bio on your profile. Ensure to put a professionally written bio that states who you are, your vision, your goals, what it is like to have you in a team, what value you bring and what legacy you are working for.
- Engage more in like-minded conversations as it will establish connections to you better than on social networks. You may catch the interest of a major CEO just by your comment on a subject.
Some people may not be prepared mentally to go through the stress of putting themselves out there, that is why I am willing to help you along the way. Kindly reach out to us to set up your profile and guide you on how to continually reach out to clients and like-minded professionals in your field.
The Key To Getting Ahead Is Getting Started
Get started on your LinkedIn journey today as there are various advantages to the platform that trumps other platforms hands down, confused? No problem. reach out to us here and we will help you get you on your way to the professional outlook and connection your personal brand/corporate brand so desires today in business.
Connect with us let’s get you started!
Cheers
