LinkedIn, a social network like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram that almost all of us know, differs from these platforms in many aspects. LinkedIn is used for more professional purposes than others. In other words, it is a social platform where you can share your skills, areas of expertise, educational information and work experiences.
Microsoft, which acquired LinkedIn for 26.2 billion dollars in 2016, has managed to rapidly increase the number of users with the new features it has introduced since then. There are also Premium options for professionals who use LinkedIn as part of their work. According to the latest published reports, 39% of users benefit from Premium. Let’s move on to our content where we answer what is LinkedIn, how to delete a LinkedIn account and many more questions.
Let’s start with the basics: What is LinkedIn?
LinkedIn is a professional business network founded in May 2003 where people in the business world can interact with each other. Unlike other social platforms such as Facebook and Twitter, this network has a much more professional structure, with a more formal environment, job postings, and a focus on promoting companies, products, and events.
If you are a job seeker and want to attract attention in the industry, you can carry out the process much faster and professionally by adding your work experiences, education, projects and certificates to your profile. So, whether you are a newly graduated student or a professional working in large companies, the LinkedIn profile you create will be very helpful to you.
Anyone can open an account on LinkedIn. LinkedIn also has a premium version and offers different features to its subscribers. To open an account, you will need an email address and a phone number that are not already registered with LinkedIn.
So when and how was LinkedIn founded?
LinkedIn was founded in the United States in 2003 by former PayPal executive Reid Hoffman, who planned to bring together the professional business sector. The platform managed to make a name for itself quickly and attracted the attention of many investors by reaching more than 100,000 users in just one year.
According to the latest statistics, it has 875 million users from 200 countries in 2023. More than 310 million of these are monthly active users. It is thought that the platform will reach 1 billion users in the next 5 years.
How to use LinkedIn?
LinkedIn, the world’s largest professional networking platform, contains many details. Members use the platform to stay in touch with partners, customers and colleagues. But much more can be done than this; For example, you can increase awareness of yourself or your brand by adding more details to your profile. LinkedIn’s internal search algorithm prioritizes profiles that rank as “complete,” helping them get nearly 20 times more views than incomplete profiles. Therefore, completing your profile will give you a great advantage on the platform.
It also allows you to connect with people and professional organizations in the industry you are interested in. You can invite anyone to connect and you can accept invitations. You can communicate with the people you added with the messaging feature offered by the platform. You can also produce various content or share posts from other users.
If you want to browse job postings, you can make a brief search about your job from the general search bar. By adding various filters to the search results, you can find listings that are closer to you.
Important LinkedIn features you need to know:
- You can adjust who can see your links
- You can view profiles in private mode
- You can create surveys
- You can reach university graduates
- Has iOS and Android support
You can adjust who can see your links
If you do not want rival organizations to reach your customers, business partners and employees, you can prevent this with the feature where you can adjust who can see your connections. This feature prevents your competitors from taking advantage of the connections you have established and developed within the platform.
To do this, go to the “Settings and Privacy” page. Then, under the “Visibility” tab, click “Who can see your links?” Select the option. From here you can limit visibility to “Only you”.
You can view profiles in private mode
Just as you may want to hide your connections from your competitors, you may also want to remain anonymous when visiting competitor profiles. LinkedIn has a feature that responds to your request. This means that you can easily review any profile without the knowledge of the profile owner.
To do this, go to your “Settings & Privacy” page. Under the “Visibility” tab, click “Profile viewing options”. Then select “Private mode” to view profiles anonymously.
You can create surveys
Another important feature of the platform is that you can create surveys that will allow you to interact with your target audience. This not only increases engagement but also allows you to gain valuable information about your connections. You can prepare surveys that your target audience can interact with with attention-grabbing questions and options.
If you want to create a survey, you can reach the relevant section by clicking on the “Start Post” button and then clicking on the three dots below.
You can reach university graduates
With the alumni search feature, you can find people associated with a particular school and add them to your LinkedIn network. You can further filter search results by where they work, their job description, and where they live.
Has iOS and Android support
In addition to all these features, LinkedIn also has support for iOS and Android platforms. If you are using a device with these operating systems, you can easily download it by going to the application store.
How can you delete your LinkedIn account?
- Step #1: Go to the LinkedIn website and sign in with the account you want to delete.
- Step #2: Click on the “Me” icon in the top navigation bar.
- Step #3: Select Settings & Privacy from the menu that opens.
- Step #4: Go to Account Management at the bottom
- Step #5: Then choose your reason for deleting the account.
- Step #6: Enter your password on the next page to confirm your transaction.
Step #1: Go to the LinkedIn website and sign in with the account you want to delete.
First, go to linkedin.com using your internet browser. You can also easily perform this process via LinkedIn’s mobile application.
Step #2: Click on the “Me” icon in the top navigation bar.
After logging in with the account you want to delete, click on “Me” in the menu at the top.
Step #3: Select Settings & Privacy from the menu that opens.
After clicking on the “Me” button, you will see a drop-down menu. Then click on “Settings and Privacy” under the “Account” heading.
Step #4: Go to Account Management at the bottom
You need to scroll to the bottom of the page that opens and reach the “Account management” section. Here you will see two fields saying “Freeze account” and “Close account”. Since you want to delete your account, you need to click on close account. Click on the continue button on the newly opened page.
Step #5: Then choose your reason for deleting the account
In this section, you will see 6 options. Choose the one that suits you best from these options and continue the process.
Step #6: Enter your password on the next page to confirm your transaction.
After choosing the reason for deletion, you need to enter the password of the account you want to delete on the page that opens for security purposes.
Step #7: Finally, press Done to close the account.
Finally, after entering your password, click the “Done” button and complete the LinkedIn account deletion process.