If you have a habit of turning your nose up at LinkedIn, you need a slap on your wrist.

For the past two years, the business- and employment-oriented social networking has quietly been improving its platform by streamlining both mobile and web, tampering down the spam, and even going as far as introducing new lead-generation and targeting tools.

In other words, it has “established itself as an essential destination for marketers looking to reach an executive audience,” explains Adweek.

Business to business? Why the hell are you still using Facebook?

LinkedIn is increasingly part of the conversation among top brands:

One reason is the sheer volume of data the social network collects. LinkedIn’s half a billion users share a lot of information—not merely their digital CVs, but endorsements, recommendations, blog posts, comments, likes, shares and follows.

…and even job opportunities.

But beyond that, it’s the level of engagement in LinkedIn that is attracting professionals – and I am not talking about the amount of engagement, influence, etc, but rather the quality:

Unlike Twitter and Facebook, it’s not besotted with fake profiles, fake news and angry invective. As a result, it’s become a kind of refuge for real people who want to discuss ideas, not hurl insults or swap memes.

“People are more careful about what they say on LinkedIn, because it’s essentially their default resume,” says M. Scott Havens, global head of digital for Bloomberg Media. “We see a much cleaner conversation that’s supportive, positive and actually useful.”

Authenticity and polite discourse are two reasons why business periodicals have embraced LinkedIn as a publishing platform. Since the beginning of this year, Bloomberg’s LinkedIn follower count has doubled to roughly 1.5 million, says Havens, while user engagement is literally off the charts.

“If you look at comments or unique impressions of our content, the growth is exponential,” he says. “We were doing half a million impressions a month before, and now it’s like 5 or 6 million.”

Of course, as with any network, there’s room for improvement – but I’m not going to go into those details, so you can read the full piece about LinkedIn on Adweek here.

Otherwise, take a look at Adweek’s superstar tips:

Boom.

While LinkedIn takes a lot more effort to get off the ground, go for a Premium account and get it together.

Also, hook up with us here. We would love to have you around.

[source:adweek]