Overview
LinkedIn (www.linkedin.com) is a free online social networking site that focuses solely on the professional aspects of an individual’s profile. The service boasts over 55 million members in more than 200 countries worldwide. LinkedIn provides a digital means of building, maintaining, and capitalizing on one’s network of professional contacts.
Strengths
LinkedIn is a free service that allows users to manage their own professional information as well as their list of professional contacts. Through direct (your friends and colleagues) and indirect connections (your friends’ friends and colleagues) and participation in groups, users are exposed to a large network of professional contacts and the information, expertise, and insight of those people. Personal contact information and profile settings can be customized. Correspondence among individual users is private. LinkedIn provides valuable tools for job seeking, including job openings, potential connections through your extended network, research on companies (including lists of current and former employees), and a Q&A section on career and business opportunities.
Weaknesses
LinkedIn is focused strongly on business and its conservation applications are likely limited. Guarded communications make messages hard to convey to broad audiences rapidly. However, users can create and join groups that blog about professional topics. LinkedIn is often viewed as an excellent means of expanding and growing a personal professional network, but communication among contacts within that network is best done via other means (e.g., e-mail, phone call, etc.)
Examples
A number of conservation organizations maintain LinkedIn group pages, including Ducks Unlimited, The Nature Conservancy, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Numerous universities maintain groups for alumni; some programs and departments (mostly business and law) maintain groups as well. Access to graduate school opportunities and current and former students are available for some professors.
Further reading
A tour of LinkedIn, a new user guide, and a help forum is available at the following link: http://learn.linkedin.com
This publication is dynamic in that it will continue to be improved, updated, and expanded over time. Suggestions for improving the content, organization, and scope of this publication are encouraged and can be contributed here (http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/NP3Y772).