One of the biggest things to impact social media recently has been LinkedIn. The company went public recently and the initial IPO was a huge success.
It's not surprising to anyone in the field of recruitment that LinkedIn is the new hot ticket item. Recruiters are all trying to figure out how to make it work so they can find talent. As someone who has been working in recruitment advertising for almost 10 years I can totally see the advantages and why recruiters are looking to this as a way to introduce social media to their recruiting strategies.
LinkedIn is happy to have you use their free services but like all businesses they are looking to promote the paid alternatives. If LinkedIn is going to grow and make a profit they are going to rely on these upgraded services as a way to increase revenue.
The problem is that when you get to the point of using their paid alternatives, this is where you find LinkedIn's weak spot. That is their customer service. They have grown so much that there aren't enough reps available to answer questions. Unlike other paid media, they don't always rely on rate cards.
It's possible to talk to two different reps and get two different prices. That is if you can get someone to call you back. They also like to push a minimum buy for companies of 25k which can be out of reach for some companies.
I think they have some great products. But as we have all seen in social media, new competitors are always on the horizon trying to show why they are better. If LinkedIn doesn't look at the long term picture and provide better customer service than it will be all the easier for a competitor to come in to replace them.