LinkedIn | The Career Portal

 Welcome to my fourth and final blog post for MKTG 290 – Digital Marketing and Communication. I will be sharing my learning experience on the topic of LinkedIn. 

LinkedIn’s Story

Firstly, LinkedIn is a business-oriented social networking site founded in 2002 by Reid Hoffman to provide a platform where professionals can connect, share, and learn. Users can create profile pages that have a structure similar to a résumé where they can summarize their career, advertise their skills, and list their education and employment history.

LinkedIn went on to evolve and introduced the ability for companies to post job openings and advertise on the site in 2005. Then, in 2016 Microsoft bought LinkedIn for approximately $26 billion. Today, LinkedIn is one of the world's top social platforms, with more than 900 million members and 58 million registered companies in more than 200 countries worldwide.

New Beginnings - My Journey with LinkedIn

Secondly, as a college student, I intend to start searching for my first job after graduating. As such, I decided to create a profile to find opportunities to grow my career, connect with other professionals, and establish my professional brand. As a new user, this video tutorial taught me how to get started:

LinkedIn has a simple usability and a straightforward interface. There were different tabs to navigate your homepage, network/connections, job search tool, notifications, and messages and create posts.

After setting up my profile, within 24 hours I got notified of job vaccines. I also found my dream company that I hope to work for in the future, Gulf Engineering Services Ltd. Therefore, I am excited to connect with people at the organization and receive more insights on the company.

Some of the Best Ways to Use LinkedIn

Thirdly, in my opinion, these are some of the best ways to use LinkedIn:

Personal Use

• Showcase your expertise, share your accomplishments, and demonstrate your passion for your field to build your personal brand.
• Find jobs that match your skills, experience, and career goals.
• Acquire professional learning and development through courses and tutorials.
• Communicate and form valuable connections and partnerships with like-minded individuals/professionals. 
• Stay up-to-date with valuable insights, articles, and updates relevant to your field.

Business Purposes

Business owners can create a business page to promote their company and build their brand image, which will enable them to:

• Share links to their website, email, and other social media pages.
• Create content with links and images to increase engagement and show leadership within their industry.
• Encourage employees with personal pages on LinkedIn to join and interact with the company page to increase its visibility to their connections.
• Demonstrate their company culture to attract the best employees.
• Use the career page to showcase vacancies and attract and engage professionals through the Life and Jobs Tabs.

As such, LinkedIn offers unique advantages for professionals and businesses. Its dedicated focus on professional networking, credibility-building tools, industry-specific content, and extensive opportunities for career growth and business development sets it apart from other platforms.

Angelina Ankai.