Come for a Job, Stay for the Socializing: Gratifications Received from LinkedIn Usage

LinkedIn is the leading social network site focusing on professional life, with over 500 million customers, but has received far less research attention than Facebook and other personal networks. This study is one of the first to examine gratifications received from using LinkedIn by U.S. adults and relationships between those gratifications and how the site is utilized Uses and Gratifications Theory served as conceptual framework. The cross-sectional study surveyed 390 active LinkedIn customers 25 and older about gratifications received, intensity of attitudes, and site usage. Exploratory factor analysis and structural equation modeling were used to identify three gratification factors for using LinkedIn: jobs and job affairs, social aspects of employment, and finding old and new friends easily. The social aspects of employment factor had a significant relationship with both intensity of attitudes toward LinkedIn and site usage. This was a surprising finding, since LinkedIn is commonly associated only with utilitarian career-oriented motives, rather than hedonic gratifications like socializing.