According to new research carried out by KISS Communications, social networking sites are creating a revolution in personal branding. Our online survey carried out at the beginning of 2011 found that 43% of professionals use LinkedIn primarily to increase their visibility. “There is a growing emphasis towards the individual,” believes Richard Bland, Creative Director at KISS Communications. “Businesses are not just checking out a company’s web site but looking at the employees who work there. There is a definite shift away from the employer to the employees.” “This undoubtedly will make companies nervous,” believes Richard. “This is new territory for businesses and there will be a sense of losing control. Having a corporate LinkedIn strategy can be useful for organisations to ensure that there is a consistent approach to social media sites that are visible externally.” Despite its international success; LinkedIn has 90 million users worldwide in 200 countries, with 4 million in the UK, and the sites obvious appeal at raising professional’s profile, KISS’s research found that a staggering 16% of business professionals don’t use LinkedIn. The research, which questioned over a hundred people in a range of industry sectors in the UK, found only a small minority (2%) use LinkedIn as a way of finding a new job, with 8% confessing to using it just to be nosy. Voted as one of the top three marketing agencies in the East of England by Business Weekly, KISS Communications works with a mixture of blue chip companies, successful SMEs and interesting start-ups, including Anglian Water, Bosch, Booking.com, Johnson Matthey, SISK and PlastiKote, One Nucleus, Cambridge Past Present & Future, Balancing Blooms and Geomerics. The company provides advertising, design, branding, digital, exhibitions and public relations services. If your business would like to talk to Simon Fryer about how KISS Communications could help you in 2011 please contact him directly on simon@kisscom.co.uk For full details of the results of the research carried out at the beginning of the year, please contact KISS PR Director, Justine Smith on Justine@kisscom.co.uk.