Should you invest time in LinkedIn?

If you’ve ever talked to an expert on a specific online marketing tool, they frequently tell you that you’re not spending enough time with it. But in reality, every tool and every platform isn’t right for everyone.

While LinkedIn can be a powerful tool, it’s not the best fit for everybody. Let’s look at how you can tell if you should invest time in the popular social media site.

What is LinkedIn?

Put succinctly, LinkedIn is a social media website (or platform) that is geared toward professionals. When you sign up for LinkedIn, you can make use of:

• Your online profile, essentially a dynamic resume on steroids
• Publishing long-form articles to establish yourself as a thought leader
• Connecting with others you know on LinkedIn for professional networking (Over 300 million people are members)
• Engaging in professional conversation using targeted discussion groups
• Creating a Company Page, similar to a LinkedIn profile, but for your organization
• Finding jobs
• Finding qualified staff

Of course, there are many other capabilities as well. Those are arguably the most popular.

Who is it useful for?

There are four factors you should consider when considering investing time in any social media website:

1. The audience on the social media website compared to your target market.
2. The capabilities of the social media website, comparing them to your capabilities and products/services as an organization.
3. The comfort level of whoever will actually be doing the work on that specific social media website.
4. Your company culture and how well it matches the culture of that social media website.

Given that and what we’ve already discussed on LinkedIn, investing resources on the platform may prove useful if you are:

• A salesperson whose target market is either professionals or businesses (B2B)
• In human resources
• Open to job offers
• Looking to build strategic partnerships with other professionals or organizations
• A student who will be job hunting soon
• The owner or CEO of a business
• A vice president
• Wanting to be a CEO or VP
• The executive director of a nonprofit
• Wanting to eventually be an executive director of a nonprofit
• Looking to benefit from the knowledge of others in your industry around the world
• Want to be positioned as a thought leader

If any of those sound like they apply to you, then you might consider investing in LinkedIn. You can definitely invest time and energy, but it may also be worth it to invest in having a professional help you with your plan, your personal profile, and even your Company Page.