Pros & cons of using LinkedIn

In this article let’s take a look at pros and cons of linkedin for both business and job seekers, This is the most comprehensive guide you can find online regarding why you should use LinkedIn.

I have been using the platform since a long time now and all the advantages and disadvantages I mentioned in this article are backed by statistics and data so that you can rely on them.

And without further ado let’s dive right in.

Pros and cons of LinkedIn for businesses and job seekers

Why you should use LinkedIn, pros of LinkedIn

Great platform for networking

One of the main advantages of using LinkedIn is that it is a great platform for networking opportunities.

And unlike other social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram LinkedIn is different because the audience are more professional and business people and you can get a chance to connect and message top leadership group and CEOs or CMOs of top companies in your industry And you can also participate and join many groups relevant to your industry.

As a matter of fact, the decision makers of fortune 500 companies and many more B2B companies CEOs and top leadership members actively use LinkedIn over other social media platforms and more than half a billion professional people gather on LinkedIn gives you a lot of networking opportunities.

Apart from the people using LinkedIn even the platform is programmed in such a way that whenever you comment on any post of LinkedIn or you like some post you will automatically get feeds of other people

who have liked or comment or shared the article which you liked previously so that you can find similar people and you will also get recommendations to connect with similar people with skill set of yours to build a network which is unique Thing about linkedin.

Get new jobs, business partners, internship opportunities

Another beautiful thing about LinkedIn is that you can get new job opportunities business partners and internship opportunities from LinkedIn as a matter of fact three people get hired on LinkedIn every minute and 40 million people use LinkedIn to find new jobs every week and more than 50 million companies use LinkedIn.

87% of recruiters use LinkedIn to check candidates and many recruiters use LinkedIn as a CV and resume of candidates to check what are the strengths and weaknesses and interests of the candidates before hiring them.

And you will also get frequently updated about all the open jobs that are getting listed by the companies on LinkedIn so that you can apply for those jobs instantly so without a doubt it is a great platform for not only getting new jobs but also getting new business partners and internship opportunities.

Build a following by Publishing content & showing your expertise

Another interesting thing about LinkedIn is that you can build alot of following by publishing relevant content and showing your expertise about a particular topic.

You can publish different types of content like articles, videos, images, slides and quotes, etc

as a matter of fact, 91% of marketing executives list LinkedIn as the top place to find quality content and 60% of users on LinkedIn are between 25 to 34 years of age and because of this there are more than 61 million senior level influencers on LinkedIn.

According to the Content Marketing Institute, 94% of B2B marketers use LinkedIn to distribute content, making it the social media platform used most often.

By publishing content around a particular topic over a period of time you can build a lot of trust and credibility over people At the same time LinkedIn will help you keep yourself updated with all the latest news ideas and information related to your industry.

Because videos are more engaging than text & images content, You can record, create videos to publish content around a particular topic on LinkedIn to build some following and influence on the platform and also republish those videos on YouTube by using tools like in invideo to edit videos, what’s amazing is, You can get started editing videos on invideo for free.

Less competitive platform

Unlike other social media platforms LinkedIn is not so competitive in terms of content creation as a matter of fact only 3 million people publish content on the platform out of over 500 million people who use it and there are 9 billion content impressions on LinkedIn every week, Only 1 million users have published an article on LinkedIn.

This should help you understand that LinkedIn is not so saturated platform unlike other social media sites And you can still have a lot of chances of getting more following and popularity on the platform.

Build trust, gain traffic & credibility of your brand

Another beautiful thing about LinkedIn is that you can also drive a lot of traffic and build a lot of trust of your brand from the platform as a matter of fact more than 50% of all social media traffic for B2B websites and blogs come from LinkedIn alone which should be more than enough to convince you that LinkedIn is a gold mine for B2B marketers.

You can also add testimonials and reviews of your product and brand in LinkedIn profile and build a lot of trust and credibility of your business online which can also help you in search engine ranking and obviously get you more customers in future.

Get some feedback & advice

Another interesting thing about LinkedIn is that you can also conduct polls and quiz questions around a particular product to get some feedback and advice on your product through the comments of LinkedIn posts.

LinkedIn allows individuals to engage with each other by having an answers section which allows individuals to ask questions to the public or to selected members of their personal network.

You can also introduce your product and talk about your product in live streams and videos of LinkedIn to engage your audience and get some feedback about it.

And the insights and feedback you get is really valuable in improving your product as a business and work on your product, make it better and launch it.

Gain new skills

Another important benefit is that you can get a lot of new skills especially by using LinkedIn learning platform.

In order to access LinkedIn learning you need to get the subscription of LinkedIn premium and you can also get a free one month trial, and after getting the subscription you can get access to more than 16000 plus courses on LinkedIn and also get personal recommendations in different areas including business technology and personal development and

you can also get certificates after completing the course which you can share it on your LinkedIn profile and you can learn many new things and gain new skills through this which can help you a lot in future and add new skills in your portfolio which can get you new jobs.

This is a lot more better for job seekers because they can get lots of courses access in cheaper price on LinkedIn compared to purchasing the individual courses on platforms like Udemy which is very costlier.

SEO friendly platform

Another interesting thing about LinkedIn is that it has a domain authority of 100 and when you write and publish long form content like articles and videos on LinkedIn then it can have high chance of getting ranked for keywords on search engines like Google and get traffic to your article and it can help you get more exposure.

Get new leads to your business

Another beautiful thing about LinkedIn is that according to a study of HubSpot it produced three times more conversions and leads to the traffic compared to Facebook and Twitter and other social media platforms,

79% of B2B marketers see LinkedIn as a good source for generating leads, 38% of B2B marketers say LinkedIn is generating revenue for them, and the main reason for higher conversion rate of LinkedIn is because of targeted audience and a

large chunk of audience on LinkedIn are professionals and business people who are making money and there is a huge difference between audience who use Facebook, other social media platforms with LinkedIn because people use LinkedIn to get jobs and recruit people and build their network and not time pass and share memes and cat videos which happen on Facebook and Instagram.

65% of B2B companies have acquired a customer through LinkedIn and 33% of B2B decision makers use LinkedIn to make purchases so it is not just that you can drive leads but you can also get new customers and make money from LinkedIn which is why more than 55 million companies have LinkedIn profiles.

Get frequently updated about your profile & about your network

Another thing about LinkedIn is that you can get frequently notified regarding your profile like who has viewed your profile and whether you have ranked in the LinkedIn search results or not if you’re looking for a job.

And You will also get notified regarding what others of your network have posted on their profile so that you can engage with their content and find new people to network.

Great platform for advertising

LinkedIn is also a great platform for advertising for businesses as a matter of fact 71% of B2B marketers use LinkedIn for their advertising strategies, and the cost of lead is 28% cheaper compared to Google ads on LinkedIn, and LinkedIn provides more than 200 different audience characteristics to target their ads on the platform and a large chunk of B2B marketers use LinkedIn to get sales and LinkedIn provides 80% of leads to B2B marketers and more leads to the businesses compared to Facebook and Twitter.

Ad exposure on LinkedIn can increase purchase intent by 33%, but because it has a professional environment the cost per click on LinkedIn is slightly higher compared to other platforms & All of these statistics and numbers are great and clearly show that linkedin is excellent platform in order to run ads and promote your business especially for B2B brands.

Learn more about your company and recruiter

Another benefit of using LinkedIn is that you can learn more about the company where you want to work and also about the recruiter and HR before you apply for the job in that company.

As I already mentioned earlier that a huge chunk of LinkedIn users are business people and recruiters use LinkedIn to recruit candidates, more than 55 million companies use LinkedIn so You can get a glimpse of the company where you want to work and what are the skills required to work in the company, types of jobs available, work environment and reviews of the people who have worked in that company and many more details can help you research better about the company and the recruiters.

You can also send personalised messages to recruiters after observing their profile activity on LinkedIn to get more chances of reply when applying for the job or internship.

These are all the advantages of using LinkedIn, let’s take a look at disadvantages.

Why you should not use LinkedIn, cons of LinkedIn

Spam messages

After you start using LinkedIn for some period of time you will quite frequently get some spam messages from brands and other businesses promoting their product because the very intention of many people of using LinkedIn is to grow their network and sell their products and services so it is often common to see spam of others in your messages and feed.

You can use different filters and block certain feeds on LinkedIn but still you will get some spam messages which can be sometimes irritating.

Hard to get noticed

Another disadvantage of using LinkedIn is that it can be sometimes hard to get noticed because of the sheer volume of people who use LinkedIn.

And in order to get yourself noticed by the potential recruiter, you need to update your profile quite frequently share content whether it is article or video and also regularly engage with other people on LinkedIn which is a lot time consuming compared to other social media platforms.

Unverifiable claims

Another disadvantage of using LinkedIn is that even though it is a platform of professional people and people will showcase their skills talents and expertise in their biodata and description of their LinkedIn profile in order to attract recruiters and jobs but the problem is that it can be difficult to verify the claims that the candidates present in their description and

also verify them to check weather what they are claiming is true or false, one way you can verify is by observing the kind of content they publish and their network and connections but it is often quite hard and difficult to verify the claims that the people show in their profile and this can lead to getting connected with our wrong person who is not expertise in a particular topic you are looking for and also lead to getting some frauds and scams so it is always advisable to have some scepticism while using LinkedIn and checking connections and their biodescription.

Privacy concerns

Even though there is some privacy concerns with LinkedIn as you need to mention some private details like your date of birth, employment history, work experience, educational background, and skills you have, habits, passions, contact information and many more details to public.

But still more than 73% of social media users at least somewhat agree that LinkedIn protects their privacy and data. Compare that to just 53% for Facebook.

It has a premium membership

Another disadvantage of using LinkedIn is that it has a premium membership and you can also get 1 month of free trial and there are many benefits of premium membership including more percentage of chances of getting response from recruiters and LinkedIn learning courses and also check who has viewed your profile and many more details.

Premium Career costs $29.99 per month, or $239.88 if you pay for an entire year up front. Premium Business costs $59.99 per month, or $575.88 if you pay for the year. Premium Sales costs $79.99 per month, or $779.88 if you pay for the year. Premium Hiring costs $119.95 per month, or $1,199.40 for the year but still it is very cost effective compared to attending physical events to grow your professional network.

LinkedIn is the only social media platform which has a premium membership but I feel even if it is quite costly still it is definitely worth it because of its benefits.

With that said let’s end the article.

Conclusion

These are all the advantages and disadvantages of using LinkedIn for businesses and job seekers.

Do let me know what are your thoughts about LinkedIn for business and job seekers in the comment section below and also let me know if you are using LinkedIn or not.

And you can also connect with me on LinkedIn below if you have any doubts regarding the article and my website here and also please do share the article if you have found it helpful and subscribe to my blog to receive notifications regarding whenever I publish a new article.