(Last Updated On: July 19, 2022)

Around 25 million profiles on LinkedIn are observed per day via several companies and businesses searching for personnel who might be liable candidates in the future for openings of jobs at their firm.

This social network is an operative platform for networking between businesses, mainly about the recruiters attempting to detect the appropriate candidate for specific job positions. Both the advantages and disadvantages of LinkedIn need to be handled carefully to take much out of it.

LinkedIn

Linkedin is a social network for professionals and businesses where individuals can build professional relationships. Here, companies create profiles for posting and advertising available job openings that job hunters can apply for.

LinkedIn is a social networking platform that allows its users to create profiles and search for any relevant information free of cost. With this platform, individuals are opportune to search for any employment as per their desire and qualification.

LinkedIn is the largest professional platform for social media networking. Research of an individual’s background and building relationships can be done to discover and network possible customers.

LinkedIn Facts

The revolution began with the revolution in digital technology and now the world fits in the small laptop or screen. Let’s get to know some interesting facts about LinkedIn before getting to the advantages and disadvantages of LinkedIn.

  1. LinkedIn was officially launched on May 5, 2003, and is the oldest among major social networks to date.
  2. LinkedIn has 33 offices and 15,800 employees in 30 cities worldwide and out of which nine are in the United States.
  3. Many local users can access the network in their native language as 24 different languages are provided.
  4. After the covid pandemic work from home, online connections have doubled the remote jobs on LinkedIn in 2020.
  5. 722 million users might not be much compared to Instagram and Facebook but the purpose and focus on specific business makes this audience worth noticing.
  6. 40% of users change their job or industry every 4 years foreseeing the potential opportunities.
  7. Linked in launched LinkedIn Live in Feb 2019 and its usage increased by 437% in 2020.
  8. The larger the size of the image better the chances for higher engagement in the post. The post with the image gets two times higher engagement.
  9. The ad displayed on LinkedIn reaches 13% of the world’s population. That is, people over the age of thirteen and the reach is a self-selected user-base that cares about their work.

Advantages And Disadvantages Of LinkedIn

However, just like any other social media, this professional platform comes with several merits and demerits. With this platform, one can attain opportunities in networking and gain access to updates on upcoming trends but is also susceptible to spam and privacy breaches.

advantages and disadvantages of LinkedIn

However, whatever might be the benefits and drawbacks of LinkedIn, for making an informed decision on trusting this platform for professional quarries or not, one must know some of the basic advantages and disadvantages of LinkedIn, which are presented briefly in the following section of this article.

Advantages of LinkedIn

LinkedIn can benefit one’s career or boom the popularity of one’s business as per the mentioned below merits:

1. Free

It’s free for starting up an account on LinkedIn and initiating connections. There are certain perks to owning a premium membership. However, your free account does offer almost everything that you might need at the beginning of your research. LinkedIn also offers free research where one can search for any target audience or distinct information.

2. Interacting Chances

LinkedIn is a prodigious tool that grants business owners the chance to research probable clients for their company. With LinkedIn, any specific industry can grab the chance of interacting and building relationships.

The availability of the posts of the industry for creating credibility incorporated with prospects, research, and technology of solid search for personnel or firms categorize the choices.

3. Answer Section

LinkedIn grants its users the facility of engaging with each other with the provision of an answers section. The users can raise questions to the distinguished members of their private link or the public. With this function, people can benefit others by sharing their expertise.

4. Profile Informs

LinkedIn grants industries or companies the facility of viewing the candidates’ professional profiles to determine the potential individual perfect for the job opening in their company.

advantages and disadvantages of LinkedIn
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With the option of viewing their resume, companies acquire a brief understanding of the background of the target individual, aiding them in comparing that against the description of the available job.

5. Relevant Information

LinkedIn systematizes information from all over the network. It sorts it into relevant companies for aiding one to remain up-to-date on any revolutionary idea or imminent trend in the news.

Within LinkedIn, one can link their blogs and accounts to share pieces of advice and insights on concerns important in other industries or businesses.

Disadvantages of LinkedIn

Regardless of the above-mentioned benefits, LinkedIn comes with the listed below drawbacks:

1. Time-Consuming

Like any other social networking site, LinkedIn takes time to progress. To build links and initiate conversations with their network, they are required to spend a considerable amount of time developing their profile.

This technique is tiresome and might even lead to unsuccessful as any business professional isn’t always active on LinkedIn.

2. Potential Spam

Most of the connections made through LinkedIn or the messages received aren’t always relevant to one’s career or business. Posting one’s profile on LinkedIn grants scammers to send requests for connection and messages for selling anything irrelevant to one’s profile.

3. Unseen Overheads

Signing up and researching relevant information or LinkedIn profiles might be free of cost, but LinkedIn charges you for any better and additional services.

advantages and disadvantages of LinkedIn

For limiting the time required for making desired connections and findings relevant opportunities, one is required to subscribe to the premium membership, which costs in the range of about 30 dollars per month at minimum.

4. Content Surplus

For a business or company, LinkedIn is a perfect platform for sharing tips or articles; however, with the surplus of content, their audience might get overwhelmed, leading to them losing interest in the LinkedIn page of those companies or businesses.

Because of this, the interactivity on LinkedIn can get limited as opposed to other social media platforms like Twitter or Facebook.

5. Privacy Breach

Several companies with a huge amount of information are hacked for the data of the users. While creating profiles for the social connection stages like LinkedIn, one is susceptible to vital dangers.

To achieve the desired opportunity, one is required to reveal several private and professional gen like email address, contact number, birth date, etc., which on being leaked can lead to a privacy breach.

However, being a huge platform means it comes with relevant drawbacks. Information about the users can get leaked through platforms like LinkedIn, leading to a breach of the privacy of the individuals. Also, through LinkedIn, several individuals get scammed.

Regardless, this platform does offer better privacy and security along with other facilities with a premium subscription, and I think it to be worth the money and time. At the same time, the companies are opportune for pinpointing the perfect candidate for their job openings.