Perception of individuals regarding social business network: A research on linkedin

The use of social networks both by businesses and individuals is increasing day by day these days. Social networks are used by individuals mostly for purposes such as communicating, having fun and accessing information, while businesses use them to communicate with their customers, to carry out promotional activities, to exchange information regarding the sector or to reach potential employee candidates. In this research, it was aimed to reveal the usage habits and perception of individuals of LinkedIn, which is a social business network. The universe of the research is the existing and potential employers using the LinkedIn business network. Since there is no possibility to reach the universe during the research, convenience sampling technique was used. A web-based survey was conducted on 456 people between May 2018 and January 2019. According to the findings of the research, it is seen that the usage of LinkedIn by participants varies in terms of their gender. Whether one has a LinkedIn Premium account and the offer to get a job on LinkedIn does not differ significantly in terms of the ages of the participants. Only the duration of LinkedIn usage varies based on the education level of the participants. When examined in terms of profession, it is not statistically significant whether the participants have a premium account or not. In addition, it is found out that there are differences in terms of LinkedIn usage time and frequency of profile updating depending on the region where the participants live. There is a significant relationship between participants' LinkedIn perception levels and their ages. It is observed that there is a significant relationship between the perception of functionality of LinkedIn and perception of content and interaction as well as perception of time. There is a statistically significant relationship between participants' perception of LinkedIn functionality and frequency of use and updating the profile. When evaluated in terms of time perception, it is seen that there was a statistically significant relationship between the frequency of use, frequency of updating the profile and the amount of people in the persons' network.