LinkedIn: Professional Networking

LinkedIn is a professional networking site – so if you see Facebook as being about your social life, LinkedIn is the equivalent for work. Founded in December 2002 and launched on May 5, 2003, it is mainly used for professional networking. As of June 2013, LinkedIn reports more than 225 million acquired users in more than 200 countries and territories.

Why to use LinkedIn:

More than just a resume - Share your volunteer aspirations on your LinkedIn profile.

Keeping in touch – From my personal experience I know that not all employee have accounts in social networks like Facebook. But all employees have a LinkedIn as they feel it is very important. Therefore we can be in touch with employees even if we leave that company which in turn improves your networking.

Obtaining referrals – It’s easy to pass referrals to your network and of course there’s the opportunity to receive them too.

Great recruitment tool – Having strong presence on LinkedIn increases your chances of being hired as a freelancer or being offered a new job. Use LinkedIn Advanced Search to find potential candidates or advertise in job section.

Obtaining relevant news on your industry – Use LinkedInToday – it’s like a personalized newspaper and has just been updated – and LinkedIn Groups to find out gain valuable insights and to find out what’s going on in your sector.

Top 10 favorite features in LinkedIn:

Even though there are many features, the above mentioned ten features are considered as the favorite by the users.

QR Codes: QR codes vs Barcodes

The QR code system was invented in 1994 by Toyota's subsidiary, Denso Wave. QR codes were initially used by automotive industry in Japan. QR codes consist of four types of data (numeric, alphanumeric, binary, Kanji).

Why and how QR codes are useful:

You don’t have to own a business to use QR codes. They are free and anybody can own it. They are used to keep track of your things.  For example, they are used in libraries to track books, CDs and DVDs. Even personal information can be stored in QR codes.

However they are used to track and store information, they are mainly used by companies, banks and institutions for promoting them and their products.

QR codes vs. Barcodes:

The QR code and barcode are examples of information matrix. However a significant difference in the two is that while a barcode only holds information nicely in the horizontal direction, a QR can do so vertically as well. This is why QR codes are referred to as two-dimensional, because they carry information both vertically and horizontally. Another direct result to this is greater potential to carry information in a smaller space. Compared to a barcode, it’s no competition at all.

Therefore we conclude that QR codes are more advantageous than barcodes.

Social Networking and Security: In Social Media Marketing

Social media marketer must be careful when giving suggestions to their clients for promoting client’s brand. There are several online tools which we and our client can use to monitor how the brand is getting endorsed or liked by people.

Social networking sites are real boon to the entrepreneur because they can create pages for their brand and their brands can be advertised free of cost. Nowadays there is a special team called social media marketing team within the marketing team of every company to advertise their brand and their products in social networking sites like Facebook, twitter and YouTube. The main features in social networks that popularize the brand and their products are Like and Share.

The tools used to monitor the brand can be used by our clients to check the progress in promoting their product. Therefore we must make our promotions pleasing and appealing with offers provided by the client thereby increasing the consumer participation.  

On the other hand, social networks are risky as they are subjected to everyone’s comment. Anyone can register their thought about the brand as a comment. There are chances of negative promotion of the brand because of some bad comments. Of course, the comments which are not legitimate can be flagged.

Thus Social Networking can both promote and demote the brand. It all depends on the way how we share our thoughts on the social networking sites.