Alma Mater Studiorum – University of BolognaCourse in Business Intelligence

SURVEY OF LINKEDIN® USERS

prepared by S. Buzko, N. di Giacomo, A. Matic

Increasingly available technologies and their more conscious adoption continue influencing the lives of all of us. Each day we are immersed in an information cloud around us. The issue is no longer the availability and asymmetry of information, i.e. how can you get the information you need, but to understand which information you really need and separate it from all the other details. Moreover, this new technological setting also reshapes the way we interact and build relationships with various groups of people.

We tried to gain a better understanding of some aspects of these phenomena by posing a question as to how people actually use online professional networks identifying possible similarities or distinctions among them and trying to explore it.

Choosing the objective of our first research project we

attempted to delineate distinct groups of

professionals who would usein particular ways social networks like LinkedIn

The following results are based on analyses of data collected from 513 self-selected respondents who answered to our invitation for participation posted amongst discussions of 10 general interest Italian groups on LinkedIn

• An average networker is a male having 13 years of professional experience

• 1 out of 2 are directly connected to <90 professionals and only 15% are willing to spend >1h a day in the network

• Hi-tech prevails among industries and Sales is the first for professional fields

Professional activities

• Overall time spent on the Internet among those surveyed exceeds 1h a day in most cases, with social networks being used chiefly as a professional tool

Internet & social networking

• Five possible groups of networkersCommonalities and distinctions of networking motives

Our sample is a likely representation of the most active users of the site, as respondents , to be able to notice our message, would have come across our survey prompt in the chosen discussion groups at least once during the three week period.

Nearly 3 out of 4 are men, with an equal share between 30 and 50 years of age.

With age of 39 and 13 years of professional

experience on average

Average English proficiency is

stated at 3.8 on a 1 to 5 scale

Almost one-fifth have established their professional reputation without gaining any degree previously. However, about a third of them are currently enrolled in some academic program.

Engineering and economic backgrounds are the most commonly encountered.

Main activity sectors

• Hi-tech and ICT services (18%)• Metalworking and industrial goods (12%)• Services not tied to specific industries (11%)• Media and communication (10%)• Banking and insurance (5%), consumer

goods(4%), automotive, education…

Main professional

fields

• Sales (20%)• Information systems (12%)• Marketing and communication (10%)• Consulting (9%), HR (8%), Engineering (7%),

Finance and audit (6%), Entrepreneurship and independent professions (6%)

almost 6 out of 10 use Internet

>1h a day, whereas 20%

does not exceed 1h of their daytime

only about 1 out of 10 spend >1h a

day on Facebookand any other non-professional social networks, one third declared to never

use them

around 25% created more

than one professional

network using other like websites

enlarge knowledge of one’s own professional area

be informed about other people for professional reasons

get information about firms

…

LinkedIn is LESS EMPLOYED TO

mediate amongst one’s own contacts

participate to the discussions of the groups

get advantage from the section “Answers” (which is instead highly appreciated by the English-speaking part of the network according to information available in the “Answers”)

Also general ly exploited possibi l i t ies are

Maintaining relationships with current

contacts

Exchanging competencies

with other people from

one’s professional field

Searching for new job

opportunities

Searching for people who

have a necessary skill

set

Entering in contact with professionals

from other sectors

Entering in contact with professionals

from other countries

Applying cluster analysis with the aid of SAS software we identified 5 possible groups of professionals based on their use of LinkedIn.

To reach a more accurate result, the analysis should be performed on a more numerous sample. Nevertheless, we can notice a reasonable pattern emerge in these results.

Interestingly, we found that age and years of experience do not make a difference for the professional online networking.

Group #1 –Recruiters and similar

Group #2 –Marketers

Group #3 –Engineering and Sales

Group #4 –Followers

Group #5 –Answers forEngineers

Relatively more often participate to the discussions in groups, but spend a bit less time on the use of the Answers section than others.

23% of the sample

VALUE PRIMARILY

BENEFITS OF

finding professionals they need

gaining information about persons and companies

exchanging experiences with colleagues

Represented by HR professionals, entrepreneurs and

independent professionals

Professional activity is not related to a

particular sector, yet instruction and high tech appear to have greater weights in

the group

Background from political sciences and various other

disciplines is more

characteristic

Largely assess their usage of the site as sufficiently frequent, believe they are getting more advantage of it than generally their colleagues do, comprise relatively more female professionals and spend more time on LinkedIn compared to the others.

However, relatively less often use the network to maintain relationships and to help establish connections among their contacts, and tend to have relatively fewer contacts.

21% of the sample

APPRECIATE OPPORTUNI

TIES TO

expand knowledge of their own professional field

obtain information about companies and jobs

get in touch with professionals of other countries

Contains more sales, marketing

and communication

professionals

Also for this group areaof specialization is more

important than the sector of activity in determining their

profession, but automotive and financial institutions sectors have

some relevance

Economicbackground is

prevalent

Act relatively more as intermediates among their contacts, but more rarely use other elements of networking.

28% of the sample

THEY VALUE

availability of information about people and companies

possibility to maintain professional relationships

Characterized by the presence of a greater share of

salesprofessionals

In consumer goods, energy,

gas and petroleum, hi-

tech sectors

Engineeringbackground

19% of the sample

INFREQUENT AND GENERIC USE

Varying sectors and professional

fields

Greater presence of philosophic background

9% of the sampleProfessionals more extensively utilizing ANSWER SECTION and participating in

DISCUSSIONS

Almost 1 out of 4 have provided 11-

30 answers by now and about a half have posted 1-20

questions

Take part in relatively more

groups – one-third is in >7 groups

More engineeringprofessionals

From metalworking and industrial

goods industries

Appear to have more

professionals without any

degree