Infographic: How Are People Really Using Their LinkedIn Profiles?

With more than 100 million members -- and adding a new one every second -- the LinkedIn community has grown large enough that it demands our attention. But how are people using the professional social networking service? This infographic, created by Lab42 and based on an extensive survey of 500 registered and active LinkedIn users, gives us a better sense of what people expect to get out of the website.

Infographics are always a bit of a hodgepodge of statistics culled from a variety of sources. Here, we sort through the clutter and pull out some of our favorite facts and figures:

• Thirty-five percent of survey respondents claimed to access LinkedIn daily. Another 32 percent visit LinkedIn a few times every week, with 16 percent logging in just a few times every month.
• Eighty-one percent of LinkedIn users belong to at least one group. Of these people, 51 percent participate in group discussions.
• Among 500 respondents, 42 percent update their LinkedIn profile information regularly. Thirty-eight percent change their profile every now and then, while 13 percent have profiles that are a little outdated.
• Most top-level executives use LinkedIn for industry networking, whereas most survey respondents in middle management use the site for keeping in touch. Most entry-level employees use LinkedIn for co-worker networking.
• Eighty-two percent of survey respondents are aware that there are advertisements on LinkedIn, but only 60 percent of respondents have ever clicked on an ad (with 20 percent of respondents saying that they often click on ads).
• Ninety percent of survey respondents said that they find LinkedIn to be a useful site, specifically because it helps them to connect to individuals in their industry as well as possible clients and because it is more professional than Facebook.
  

Check out more Infographics on the Technology Channel.