Linking In
The world’s largest professional network, LinkedIn, is the home of 1 billion members and more than 11,000 employees worldwide. LinkedIn, like any successful business, knows that engagement – online and offline – is paramount. Keeping their employees inspired and ensuring they feel supported and appreciated is not merely a consideration, but a priority.
Every month, LinkedIn hosts “Investment in You” Days (or InDays for short), where employees are empowered to focus on themselves, the company, and the world at large. In March, for LinkedIn’s creativity inspired InDay, the professional networking site aimed to encourage employees to find ways to unleash creative potential in their day-to-day work.
To make this engagement visible, LinkedIn linked up with ImageThink, inviting ImageThink graphic recorders to install social listening activations in various LinkedIn offices. By listening to and visualizing the stories, experiences, and overall sentiment of LinkedIn’s workforce, ImageThink would help unlock individual and group creativity and paint a picture of their connected organization.
A Creativity InDay
During LinkedIn’s Creativity InDay, ImageThink travelled to six different LinkedIn offices spanning across the U.S. – from San Francisco, to Omaha, to New York City. At each office, ImageThink installed large canvases in high-traffic areas for maximum visibility and impact. Joined by LinkedIn’s Marketing & Communications team, LinkedIn employees were invited to share their responses to the question, “What are you in it for?”. This question aligned with the launch of LinkedIn’s “In It Together” brand campaign, where employees were encouraged to explore their personal definitions of success and the purpose that keeps them motivated.
Almost immediately, employees shared inspiring stories and experiences of giving back to the community, or personal work motivations like having a strong support system. Individuals were drawn to the display of each contribution illustrated in real-time. Quickly, colorful, personal responses filled each board. The process – from the ask to the response, to the visual translation – enabled LinkedIn employees to reflect on, identify, and express individual purpose, visualize it, and see how they fit into the larger company picture.
LinkedIn’s Network
At the conclusion of LinkedIn’s creativity inspired InDay, ImageThink graphic recorders had listened to and visualized over 1,200 employee responses. The result was a collective sense that personal definitions of success not only act as a strong motivator for individuals, but they can also be shared. On an individual, team, and organizational level, the completed social listening murals revealed a larger image of a united workforce.
Our time with ImageThink helped remind all of us that we are all people in and out of the walls at our LinkedIn offices – and this really came to life through ImageThink’s ability to capture individual ideas in a unified graphic.
Arin Mitchell, International Communications Manager at LinkedIn
As a professional networking site, LinkedIn understands the role social capital plays in professional success, and ImageThink’s social listening murals brought that interplay to life. Employee selfies, personal contributions to the social listening mural, and the hashtags #InItTogether and #LinkedInLife filled the feeds of LinkedIn and other social media platforms. Incorporating graphic recording into their Creativity InDay allowed LinkedIn to create personal moments of engagement, in person and online. Additionally, the company’s post on @LinkedInLife (the Instagram channel for LinkedIn’s company culture) was the top performing content that month.
This was such a success due to the positive energy the ImageThink team brought to the table.
Zoe Kelsey, Senior Learning Services Associate at LinkedIn
Today, LinkedIn proudly displays their boards as physical artwork and reminders in their offices. They also featured the finalized boards in company-wide communications that were shared to all global employees.
