LinkedIn has recognized that in social media results, influence and analytics matter. How we build connections and relationships on LinkedIn is professional but yet limited. We have a profile that exists until we decide to engage. The engaging is the hard part as we are looking for the “what does it do for me?” While this goes against what we practice in social media, we not always think of LinkedIn as the shiny tool that is going to generate leads and make us successful. We know we engage to be successful and we evaluate the success through the conversation but really for some … through the numbers.
LinkedIn Launches LinkedIn Swarm
LinkedIn Swarm tries to answer the analytic question of what is popular, what is the most searched and identifies that the swarm of popularity does not always reflect influence as it changes in an instant. LinkedIn Swarm is a tool that showcase the most recent and also popular companies as well as searches for titles. Title searches within LinkedIn are not to dissimilar to queries on Google or Bing. LinkedIn Swarm is a visualization of what is the most searched by company, job postings and also blog posts and the answer to who is doing well on LinkedIn.
As you can see a lot of LinkedIn Swarm is a bit confusing and jumbled. Having spent a considerable amount of time on the site, I was very engrossed but at the same time very confused. I liked that it was able to focus on all the industries and companies but yet at the same time I found it a bit confusing. The overlay of words, companies, jobs, etc were difficult to see and want to interact and/or want to find out more about. Albeit this is the launch and the feedback will be invaluable for LinkedIn, I am not so sure that this will be used past those that are showcased.
Is this a valuable tool for job seekers, companies or even the small business owner? Should we invest time into this to see what is being searched or is it a bit too confusing?
