Comprehensive SWOT Analysis of Linkedin – Detailed Explanation with Infographics

About Linkedin

Linkedin started as an American business and employment-oriented service. Founded by Reid Hoffman. With the basic purpose of providing a platform for professional networking and career development.

Since December 2016, it has been a wholly-owned subsidiary of Microsoft. Since Linkedin become more accessible and easy to use through the website or mobile app.

In terms of total registered user count, in 2021 Linkedin crossed 774 million number with the coverage of 200 countries and territories. As for India, India came second in the list of most Linkedin users with 69,000,000+ active users. The United States of America is on top with 171,000,000+ active users.

Linkedin allows users to create profiles from aspects of employer and job seeker or employee. Employers can list jobs and can search for potential candidates. Where job seekers or employees can find a job or describe their work experience, education, & skills.

Linkedin allows users to make connections to each other. Users can invite anyone to become a connection and other users have the authority to accept or reject the invitation.

Products offered by Linkedin:

• Professional Networking
• Career Development
• Job Options

Competitors of Linkedin:

• Facebook
• Meetup
• Jobcase
• Hired
• AngelList

SWOT Analysis of Linkedin

A SWOT Analysis is a tried and tested tool that helps one to understand Linkedin and the comparison of its business with its competitors and have an idea of the overall position of the bank. The strengths and weaknesses are the internal factors in this analysis while the opportunities and threats are the external factors involved. A SWOT analysis explains a company’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats in comparison to its competitors.

1. Strengths of Linkedin

Strengths are an organization’s unique qualities that provide it with a competitive advantage in acquiring more market share, attracting more customers, and maximizing profitability. Some of Linkedin’s strengths are as follows:

• Focused User Base: Creating a network between employer and employee was the basic idea behind Linkedin. Linkedin’s focus is on recruiting and gathering members for associations. However, Linkedin has developed into a much more robust tool that can and should be used for so much more than just a social site for recruiting or networking. 

• Real-Life Benefits: Linkedin provides a platform to the users where users can share their achievements, and other real-life things so that they can attract employers & can find a good job, a platform like Linkedin helped so many users to get a dream job, and also helped employers to find potential candidates. On Linkedin, companies can use a proper description of their firm and can share the company news and share information. So that they can attract the candidates.

• Social Proof: On Linkedin everyone’s profile is visible, anyone can see anyone’s profile and can see their achievements, this feature allows users to make connections and can build credibility through endorsements and testimonials that Linkedin allows your contacts to leave on your profile. 

2. Weakness of Linkedin

• User Experience: There are a lot of complaints on social platforms where users are not satisfied with the UI Linkedin is giving to them, those who are using Linkedin frequently can see the irregularities and errors in the user experience. A platform with errors and irregularities can lead to frustrated users, and this can affect the entire platform a major low-time usage.
• Personal Data & Information: As we all know Linkedin is an open platform where anyone can see anyone’s profile, where this is a good thing as a building working relationship between users, on other hand Linkedin provides the user data to the advertisement brands so they can target a specific group of users. So many people consider this is as the weakness of Linkedin cause they think that Linkedin is selling their professional information to attract more brands.
• Manage Scams: The number of scams and phishing increasing on Linkedin can affect the user privacy and number of users. Fake job opportunities can lead to many issues with users’ emotional and mental health.

3. Opportunities for Linkedin 

Opportunities are places where a company has to focus its efforts to enhance the results, sales, and eventually profits. So let’s dive into what kind of opportunities Linkedin has to produce outstanding achievements.

• Focusing on the Base Concept: In this digital world job opportunities are increasing drastically, with the growth of the world economy, industrialization, and emergence of new technologies. The average employees have become more ambitious, and are focused on the stable job and constant growth in it. This has been the major cause of changing jobs frequently leading to a boom in the recruitment industry. This will help Linkedin to become a platform for not only job seekers but also passive ones too. And it will target a whole new user base for Linkedin.

• Uniqueness: The majority of companies are using their career portal for recruitment, and for giving information about their organization. They also use platforms like campus placements, recruitment agencies, etc. Linkedin can change the traditional method and can become a new tradition by connecting more employers with potential candidates, through its social platform. This will benefit companies and will save millions of them.

4. Threats to Linkedin

Threats are potential harms that can cause loss to a company, they can be avoided if identified and rectified at the correct time.

• Intense Competiton– The company faces tough competition from other social media platforms like Facebook, monstor.com, talent management, and other talent search platforms over the world. It needs to regularly update and innovate to get a competitive advantage.
• Privacy Issues– There are a large number of people on these platforms and the major worry is the breach of privacy and fraud. There is a need for strict following of the guidelines provided by government regulations and cyber security systems.

Conclusion 

Linkedin has become a popular platform for creating and maintaining working relationships between users. Linkedin can be used as a complete tool for searching for jobs and finding potential candidates. Because Linkedin is an online social platform it’s attracting young users to find a good job & it’ll help companies to recruit a more productive and energetic young generation.

We can connect to any user from anywhere and can share our professional information with them. It is useful for those who want to create and maintain working relationships. 

Digital Marketing and its different attributes are important factors for upskilling the online presence of any company. IIDE offers short-duration certificate courses which can help you learn digital marketing in as little as five days. 

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