Bringing the social economy to LinkedIn
Antwerp counts 13 companies who employ people you’d never meet on LinkedIn. They are physically or mentally disabled, or they come from poor backgrounds. Even though these Antwerp companies revolve around societal gain and favor people over profit, they too like to see orders streaming in. Orders from companies that do revolve around profit.
Evening the odds through social media
Nowadays, the first thing you do when you start looking for a job is setting up a LinkedIn profile. It lets you scope out companies before you apply, and connect with employers who are or may be interested in working with you. In short, if you need to work for a living, LinkedIn is your first place to be.
Unfortunately, members and (potential) employees of the social economy don’t always find their way to LinkedIn that easily. Onlyhumans set out to change that, and succeeded. Several Antwerp companies involved in social economy now have LinkedIn helping them to fill their order books.
The snowball that is LinkedIn
Onlyhumans helped several social economy workers set up a LinkedIn profile and send connection requests to their employers’ competitors. LinkedIn allows you to include a personal note with connection requests, so we used that opportunity to turn each note into a one-sentence pitch. The people at the receiving end of the connection requests were then able to learn all about the opportunities of working with the social enterprise, or sheltered workshop, at a glance.
Driving social economic growth through LinkedIn
The 4 Antwerp companies involved in our social economy campaign eventually garnered over 2000 LinkedIn connections with relevant prospects, of which several turned into profitable business relations.
