Inside//Out: LinkedIn
Thursday, August 16, 2007
One of the social networks that I frequent most often is LinkedIn. I've been a member of the service for years, but until recently they've not had the critical mass necessary to get traction. Over the last 6 months, however, I've seen a flood of people using the service to connect on a professional basis.
LinkedIn is a focused, professional networking site. It doesn't pretend to be MySpace. The design is clean, but a little stark and it could use a little more personalization in order to make it more engaging. In this video tour, I focus on what LinkedIn does well within their network and how you can apply the same logic and motivations to your own community.
[Feed readers please click through to the post if you cannot see the video.]
What LinkedIn does well:
- Focus. The site is professional and keeps more social elements out.
- Communication. Alerts are stored in your inbox and messaging is clear and simple.
- Answers. The answers area is a great resource for anybody looking for advice from peers.
- Rewards. LinkedIn offers virtual rewards for engaging (profile completeness, etc.).
- Community. It's all about community and LinkedIn has found great ways of showing you what's happening in your personal network as well as your extended network.
- Trust. The site is completely built on trust. You connect with trusted people and so do they. When a message/answer/job comes through the service you know it's for real.
What LinkedIn needs to work on:
- I think they could do a bit to make it more personal. Photos would be nice.
- I still think they should offer a resume generator that compiles your data and exports it with some editing on your part.
- Would be cool to hook up more social media to profiles (blogs, photos, videos, etc.)
If you don't use the service I encourage you to check it out. The more complete your profile is the more beneficial the system will be as it will find colleagues, classmates, etc.
If you have an idea for an Inside//Out post you can send me an email or leave a comment on this post.
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