CHAPTER 9: MOST INTERESTING

Is anyone else fascinated with LinkedIn? Just me? Okay. I had never heard of LinkedIn until I went to college. Dr Lambdin said in TREX to get a LinkedIn account. So I did. Last year, in career planning, we spent a whole month talking about LinkedIn. I think that is where my “love” for the app started. I find myself going on LinkedIn when I am bored to pass time just like what I do with Instagram and Snapchat. I really enjoyed looking at LinkedIn by the numbers. It is fascinating to me that the site is ranked 18th for the most popular platform but makes $4.4 billion dollars in ad revenue. My mind cannot comprehend that! It’s also strange because I feel like I don’t see many ads on the site. 

Another thing I enjoyed reading was section three, Marketing with LinkedIn. I didn’t know that LinkedIn is the number one channel for business to business marketers. However, it makes sense because the app has over 75 million company pages to distribute content and information. It is interesting that only 32% say that LinkedIn helps with skill development. That number seems low to me. I say this because the app allows you to reach all-star status when you complete your profile. I also liked reading about LinkedIns algorithm. I feel like all social media algorithms are similar. LinkedIn made a few updates to their algorithm to help the app stand out than the rest. This includes content that specifically asks for likes or reactions will no longer be promoted. This is a little different, but it makes me think of all the influencers on other social media sites who pay to get their photos to be seen by others. I also liked how LinkedIn increased their “privacy” for users. There is now more filtering of polls so members see less from strangers and more from people they are likely to engage with. I think that this is a great addition for LinkedIn. Now, I can see and read about topics that I am interested in. 

The last topic I thought was interesting was the Duke University success story. I liked how Duke University used LinkedIn to target, educate, and enroll students into the MBA program. Duke used LinkedIn InMail to also target prospects with sign up information. The prospects would then get a follow up message to encourage applicants to apply, if they haven’t already. Duke University saw an increase of 400% with this tactic compared to their previous campaigns. Wow!