Linkedin as a Social Media Network

   Social media for most people is a way to connect with friends and family and stay up to date with their lives during the changing circumstances of your own. The concept of social media is that one joins a social media website where you can upload different information about yourself like pictures, contact info, daily updates from you, or content you find enjoyable. Of course the content that can be uploaded and the rules, concrete and unspoken, differ from one social media site to another.

   Recently I have been introduced to a somewhat different Social media site named LinkedIn, which is much more professional than sites like Facebook or Tumblr which are the main sites I use. LinkedIn is mostly used to upload and showcase yourself, all past job experiences, current skills, current career, and resumes online for potential employers to see. At first glance it does seem like LinkedIn is more of a job site than a social media site, but one of the main aspects of LinkedIn is networking which of course is what social media is all about on some level. LinkedIn allows you to make your own profile and add connections, similarly to adding friends on Facebook and getting followers or becoming a follower on other social media sites. LinkedIn relies heavily on the notion of the six degrees of separation, which states that any one person is separated from any other person in the world by at most six additional people in a social network. This means that in theory on a site like LinkedIn you have the potential to make valuable connections to people in fields or careers that you may want to get into. Therefore, if you do connect with these people you will have a person inside the company you want to work for to help you get your foot in the door for a job at that same company.

   I for one am glad to know about this social media site, as I believe it can open many doors for people wanting to find jobs that they may not have even known existed. As a student, I also think that it is a useful tool for finding internships or co-ops, which are important for most college students like myself to gain experience before heading into the job market upon graduation.

Link to my LinkedIn Profile