How Data Analysts and BI Professionals Use LinkedIn

Due to the popularity of our post on how data analysts use Twitter, we thought we’d expand to another popular social network – LinkedIn – and give a report on how this resource is used by industry professionals. LinkedIn is a prolific resource for information on the topics of BI and data analytics. Its resources span five major categories – groups, answers, people, companies and events.

Groups

BI and data analytics groups are the most popular resource inside LinkedIn’s professional social network. When you type in the Group search term Business Intelligence, you receive 1,411 results. The top three groups are Business Intelligence Professionals (45,925 members), Supply Chain Today: Latest News & Trends, Delete Spam, Technology Innovation, Search Executive Jobs (33,403 members) and Business Intelligence Group (28,012 members). 

For data analytics, the search results show 162 groups, with the top three coming in at Advanced Business Analytics, Data Mining and Predictive Modeling (14,989 members), Business Intelligence & Analytics Group (14,320 members) and Business Analytics (14,097 members).

While LinkedIn Groups offer a “velvet rope” style of networking, the content available inside the groups is very valuable. Members can post discussions, promotions and jobs within the confines of the group. The networking site also allows members to police posts by flagging blatant promotions or spammers.

Some other suggested groups from our blogging team include:

Analytic Bridge

BI Expert Knowledgebase

Fantasy Football Fanatics

Future Trends

Answers

Behind Groups, LinkedIn Answers is a great resource for BI and data analytics to connect with others in the industry. From asking questions around which resources to use to trends to how to use a tool, LinkedIn Answers is valuable to anyone in the industry. So much so, it should be one of your social networking stops at least a few times a week.

Answers is also a great way to generate connections. It allows you to find/suggest experts and the personal note field at the bottom of the response form allows you to send your contact info to a prospective connect without having to be introduced.

The last benefit of Answers is that they use a ranking system, so you can become well-known for providing “good” and “best” answers to questions.

We actually used this tool to generate feedback for this post. We received the following groups suggestions:

Advanced Business Analytics, Data Mining and Predictive Modeling
Business Analytics
Customer Analytics Group
Customer Intelligence and Insight
Data & Text Analytics Professionals
Database Marketers
Datarati
Predictive Analytics
Predictive Modeling, Data Mining, Actuary / Actuarial and Statistics Group
Statistical Consultants
Text Analytics
The R Project for Statistical Computing
Visual Analytics

People

We won’t spend a lot of time on this area, but LinkedIn is a great way to find out who works where and who the influencers are in BI and data analytics. Similar to groups, you can search by name, company or industry.

Companies

A newer addition to LinkedIn, you can follow companies and find out when they have job postings, news releases, blog posts, new employees, etc. Go to Spotfire’s LinkedIn page if you wish to see an example?

Events

Search or post upcoming industry events. Some of the upcoming events listed include:

IDC Business Intelligence Roadshow 2010

Gartner Business Intelligence Summit 2011

The Five ‘Ws’ of Mobile Business Intelligence

Complimentary Webcast: Introduction to Spotfire Analytics

Amanda Brandon
Spotfire Blogging Team

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