Linkedin Premium- Is this Upgrade Worth the Cost

In this technology driven world, it seems like there is a new social media tool or upgrade out every month! If you work in the business or marketing world, keeping on top of these tools and how they can make your company and everyday work life easier, is very important. One example of these beneficial and popular social media tools, is LinkedIn.

LinkedIn also has an upgrade, “LinkedIn Premium,” that we get asked about all the time.  Premium adds a monthly fee and some extra tools in your toolbox. The cost of this ranges from $19.95 – $49.95 a month, from the least expensive tier to the top Job Seeker Premium account. This leaves us with the question- Is this upgrade really worth the monthly fee when you can still access LinkedIn, (less these extra additions), for free?

First, you need to think about a few things: Am I looking for prospects or clients? Am I looking to fill an open position? Do I outsource this search to a recruiter?

Let’s take a closer look at some of the pros of this upgrade and how they relate to your everyday tasks and long-term goals.

Pros for People Looking to Connect with Prospects or Customers/Clients:

• Send personalized inMail message to anyone, allowing hiring managers to directly contact prospective employees, regardless of if connections are established.
  • InMail reaches as much as 44% of contacts, surpassing typical email efforts.
  • InMail is a very proactive and quick way to contact leads and establish an introduction rather than waiting to be connected.
• See more detailed profile data for everyone in the extended network, regardless of connections, including: past employment, contact information and full names.
• For some companies, this more detailed search tool can cut out the middle-man recruiting position.

One thing to remember, is that it is possible to grow your reach and connections organically. By being active on LinkedIn, joining different groups that share your interests, and liking companies you are interested in or would like to work for, all can also expand your reach on LinkedIn. LinkedIn Premium, in a way, offers a short cut to doing this, so you don’t have to have formed all these connections before being able to establish contact or send an InMail message. However, without the upgrade, this type of contact is still possible and just takes some good old time and a little effort.

Pros for People looking to Fill a Position:

• Send personalized inMail message to anyone on LinkedIn, regardless if you share connections or not, including prospective employees who may be in a similar position.
• View all information on anyone who has viewed your profile in the last 90 days, including how they found you. This can be a great way to determine who to contact that is interested in you or your company.
• Access to beneficial data including: other jobs by salary range and individual job details.

In short, LinkedIn Premium allows you to break out of the confines of waiting for mutual connections to be contacted, or to get in contact, which could make all the difference in the world. If you are a company or hiring manager looking for prospective clients or employees, LinkedIn Premium can cut out some of intermediary research work with the detail search tool and increased mail contact rate with InMail.

Keep in mind some people may feel InMail is another route to spam, and so may be less interested in connecting if that’s your first contact.

What are your thoughts? Do you think the LinkedIn Premium cost is worth or outweighs the benefits? Comment below and let us know!

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