Is Linkedin Gaining Traction Due To The Bad Job Market?

We have had quite a few seminars in recent weeks in various parts of the state of Missouri and during these seminars I ask several different questions related to technology usage. Some of these are about local search and print media trends but many are around social media and how it relates to how people are promoting their businesses online.

I always ask for a show of hands to find out how many people in the room have Facebook accounts (always more than 60 percent, typically way more), Twitter (typically 40 to 50 percent), and then Linkedin.

As someone who thinks Linkedin is one of the most underutilized social networks for getting business done it has always been interesting to see the number of hands raised, typically less than 20 percent, sometimes close to zero.

Why is that? Because most people do not understand that social networks can be used to get business done, with most peoples first knowledge of social networking coming from stories about MySpace (My who???) or from the early days of Facebook people cannot be faulted for not understanding the importance of social media and business but it has always been a nice feeling to see that look in peoples eyes once tools (and that is what it is) like Linkedin are explained and case studies shown.

Well, I have noticed a major uptick in Linkedin accounts when I ask for the show of hands these days. The percentage of people with accounts increased in every seminar we have had over the past month or so.

Why? I think I know.

With the economy being what it is and the tough job market continuing I think people are using every avenue they can. Not Linkedin is not just for making contacts, it has been another online source for the job hunt. A great tool to use when Monster.com is just not cutting it.

With Linkedin being a social network based on trust it seems only logical that people would actually start using it for job hunting, sure people have been doing this for years but I think there are quite a few newcomers that are just now figuring out the power of using peer recommendations for finding jobs.

I am glad to see this network starting to gain traction even with those not in the corporate or tech world. That is usually the biggest hurdle for online networks like this, getting to mainstream consumers is never easy. I think it is starting to happen.