LinkedIn started as a website for people to find new jobs - they find a suitable job listed on the site and submit their resume. They get to use an address book to store the contacts of these companies. LinkedIn served as a bridge between companies and aspiring applicants and helped create jobs. Through this, many professionals around the world get in touch with each other. The website then grew exponentially as they introduce new features in their services. Today, there are more than 332,000,000 users of LinkedIn and they have earned their title as the social media for professionals. Many of our workers truly benefited from the website’s services and features. Many of them get connected to others, which created opportunities to grow and expand their business. Employers get to hire the best employees easily. The LinkedIn Groups created a sense of community and camaraderie for people who have a common goal. The website is a great success and the world owes much to it. With the presently large and growing community of LinkedIn, business professionals have to take advantage of completely utilizing the website and its features. Here are some ways business professionals use LinkedIn as a leverage to their business: Increasing online presence and credibility. The first thing to do with LinkedIn is of course, create a profile which will attract possible audience, partners, and employees. LinkedIn provides enough features, resources, and space to promote a business professional’s profile. Without a professional-looking and legitimate profile, they will not maximize the benefits of using LinkedIn to help in their business. Industry networking. Because LinkedIn is a haven for professionals, creating networks have never been easier. Networking involves reaching out to others with the intention to having them join on a specific business venture. With LinkedIn’s features and ease-of-use, business professionals can create networks and connections with other people, mutually benefiting both of the parties. Businesses thrive in connections and networks, and LinkedIn does not fail in doing so. Promoting their businesses. Business professionals can also use LinkedIn in promoting their products and services. With a large user database, it is possible to find the target audience that a business professional is looking for and promote their business to them. LinkedIn is also social media, and they can advertise their brand there like they do in Facebook, Twitter or Instagram. The groups are also a great feature in finding the target audience, which helps narrowing down the time and effort in locating the right market. Keeping in touch. As with any other social media website, LinkedIn can be used to keep in touch with subordinates, employees and other business partners. Because businesses will survive and grow with networks and connections, keeping them is just as important as creating them. With so many features and more with the premium account (which comes at a price), there is no doubt that LinkedIn can help business professionals in their ventures by enabling their profiles to be visible, letting them be easily connected with their networks, giving an avenue to promote their business and making sure they are keeping in touch with other people. If you are an aspiring business professional, make sure that you do not forget checking out LinkedIn. Photo credit: Pixabay