Professionally-Oriented Social Network Sites and the Need for Self-Promotion: The role of Profile Features

In recent years, with the widespread use of professionally-oriented social network sites (P-SNSs) such as LinkedIn, we have witnessed people increasingly use such sites for networking. Online networking can be done more efficiently than in-person networking because P-SNSs allow people to cross the boundaries of time and location and maintain and form relationships with more contacts with minimum costs. One's profile in P-SNSs plays a crucial role in online networking by facilitating relationship development and affording self-promotion. Building upon the needs-affordances-features perspective on social media, this research aims to answer how individuals' needs for self-promotion can be fulfilled by profile features in P-SNSs. Using an online survey of 120 LinkedIn users, this study finds that individuals' need for self-promotion on P-SNSs is significantly associated with leveraging the self-presentation affordance (enabled by profile features) in these sites. However, the need for self-promotion is not significantly associated with some profile features.