LinkedIn is widely considered a business and professional networking platform, but can it also be classified as a business app? Let’s take a look at some of the key features and uses of LinkedIn to determine if it qualifies as a true business application.
What is LinkedIn?
LinkedIn is a social media platform that focuses on business and career networking. It allows users to create professional profiles, connect with other professionals in their industry, find jobs, post content, and join groups. As of 2022, LinkedIn has over 850 million members worldwide.
Some of the core features of LinkedIn include:
- Profiles – Users create professional profiles highlighting their work experience, education, skills, accomplishments, interests, and more.
- Feed – A newsfeed where users can post content like articles, images, and videos.
- Connections – Users can connect with colleagues, clients, partners, and more to grow their professional network.
- Groups – Groups centered around professional interests that users can join to connect with industry experts.
- Job Listings – Millions of job postings that users can browse by industry, location, and other filters.
- Learning – Online courses and learning resources to develop business skills.
- Notifications – Notifications to stay up-to-date on network activity.
Key Uses of LinkedIn
So how do professionals and businesses specifically use LinkedIn? Here are some of the key uses of the platform:
- Networking – Growing your professional network by connecting with colleagues, clients, industry leaders, and more. LinkedIn makes it easy to discover and reach out to relevant contacts.
- Establishing a professional online presence – LinkedIn profiles appear high in Google search results and provide a place to showcase your skills, experience, and accomplishments.
- Researching companies and people – Learning more about potential employers, partners, clients, and contacts by viewing their LinkedIn profiles.
- Building your personal brand – Posting content that highlights your expertise and thought leadership.
- Generating leads – Identifying potential prospects and connecting with them.
- Recruiting and job searching – Posting job listings and discovering new career opportunities.
- Advertising and promotion – Running targeted ads and company pages to increase brand awareness.
- Business intelligence – Gaining insights about competitors, industry trends, and professionals in your field through content and data available on LinkedIn.
- Learning and development – Taking LinkedIn Learning courses to gain new business skills.
LinkedIn Features for Businesses
In addition to the uses above, LinkedIn offers a number of specific features tailored for businesses and professionals looking to manage their presence and activities on the platform:
- Company Pages – Customizable pages to showcase brands, products/services, culture, news, jobs, and more.
- Showcase Pages – Pages focused on highlighting specific products, services, or initiatives.
- Ad Targeting – Targeted advertising capabilities leveraging user data and interests.
- Recruiting Tools – Tools to post jobs, search for candidates, and connect with potential hires.
- Sales Navigator – Paid subscription tool for identifying leads, contacting prospects, and more.
- Content Creation – Ability to publish long-form posts and blog content to inform and engage professionals.
- Analytics – Analytics about page views, followers, post engagement, visitors, leads, and more.
By leveraging these features, businesses can promote their brand, advertise positions, connect with customers and partners, publish thought leadership content, gain market insights, and analyze results.
Benefits of LinkedIn for Business
Why do businesses invest time and resources into having a presence on LinkedIn? Here are some of the top benefits:
- Lead generation – 62% of social media marketers say LinkedIn generates the most leads. Features like Sales Navigator make it easier to identify and connect with prospects.
- Recruitment – 92% of job seekers use LinkedIn to search for jobs. Company pages and job listings help attract top talent.
- Brand awareness – Companies can increase brand visibility and shape perception through content marketing and Sponsored Content ads.
- Thought leadership – By regularly publishing valuable insights, businesses can establish authority in their industry.
- Audience targeting – Businesses can finely tune their audience targeting based on demographics, interests, location, and more.
- Competitive intelligence – Monitoring competitors’ activities, strategies, and connections can provide useful market intelligence.
Is LinkedIn Considered a Business App?
Based on LinkedIn’s features and common business uses, it clearly serves as more than just a social media platform. While social networking is a big element, LinkedIn could certainly be classified as a business app due to the variety of ways companies utilize it:
| Business Use | LinkedIn Features |
|---|---|
| Lead Generation | Sales Navigator, targeted advertising, InMail messages |
| Recruiting | Job listings, recruiter profile, targeted candidate search |
| Brand Building | Company pages, Showcase pages, content marketing features |
| Thought Leadership | Long-form posts, LinkedIn publisher, content analytics |
| Market Intelligence | Newsfeed, competitor pages, group discussions, profile search |
Unlike platforms focused just on social connections, LinkedIn provides robust tools to support core business functions – making it more akin to a CRM, marketing automation, hiring, or analytics platform.
User Demographics
LinkedIn’s user base also indicates its status as a business platform:
- 63% have a college degree
- 45% are in upper-level or management positions
- Median age is 41
- 45% have household incomes above $75k/year
This is an influential, affluent, and generally older audience compared to platforms like Facebook or Instagram. These demographics align well with typical target customer and employee profiles for many B2B companies.
Daily Usage Motives
According to LinkedIn’s 2022 Workforce Confidence survey, the top daily uses members have when visiting LinkedIn are:
- Connecting with colleagues and peers – 61%
- Searching for potential job opportunities – 60%
- Keeping up with news and content – 54%
- Strengthening professional identity – 44%
- Connecting with brands and companies – 42%
These motivations are much more professionally-focused compared to a platform like Facebook where personal connections, entertainment, and leisure are top motives.
Conclusion
In summary, while LinkedIn has social media elements, the platform is highly optimized for professional networking and core business functions like recruiting, branding, lead generation, and market research. The features, business uses, user base, and usage motives strongly indicate that LinkedIn qualifies as one of the most popular business apps currently available.
Businesses investing time into establishing a thoughtful presence on LinkedIn and leveraging its tools strategically can gain significant advantages over competitors still hesitant to embrace it as a business platform.