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Even though many of the informants basically joined LinkedIn in order to get access to new resources, several of them also experienced that it was a valuable tool in relation to maintenance of connections. This concept has been mentioned casually in chapter 5.4, as several areas related to information (visibility, updates, people/companies) also support maintenance of connections. This chapter expands on the areas of use that were presented in chapter 5.4 and introduces additional influences.

All of the informants had established contact with acquaintances or people that they had lost touch with following their membership on LinkedIn. Many of the informants invited or searched for people that they had studied with, former colleagues or other acquaintances that they occasionally interacted with. In addition, several of the informants received invitations to connect from people that they barely knew or had not interacted with for a long time.

Many of the informants experienced that LinkedIn made it easy for them to maintain relationships to people that they were not in regular contact with, but still wanted to have a connection to. Information about people through their profile or updates contributed to the maintenance of such connections and made it easy for the informants to get an overview. For instance, one of the informants stated that he considered LinkedIn as easy and efficient in comparison to other channels of communication:

Extract 55:

“You can establish a network that is relatively efficient and easy to maintain through LinkedIn, than you will be able to do through phone and e-mail and stuff like that” (Interview 7)

The informant knew from experience that maintenance of connections generally entailed much work, especially if you had many connections. LinkedIn, however, provided a service that was easy and efficient compared to sending out e-mails or picking up the phone, mainly because the network updated itself. Many of the other informants supported this view and LinkedIn was considered as particularly useful in relation to weak ties. This was generally because they did not have much contact with weak ties other than through LinkedIn. Still, several of the informants also used LinkedIn as a supplementary tool for maintaining contact

with strong ties. One of the informants illustrated this as she stressed that LinkedIn made it easy for her to keep in touch with friends and colleagues:

Extract 56:

“I wanna keep in touch with friends and colleagues. For me this is a great way of knowing what’s going on in their lives without having to pry or ask a lot of personal questions, or send out 155 individual e-mails. And when I want them to know something about me all I have to do is update my profile” (Interview 1)

The informant saw LinkedIn as a tool for staying updated on her connections and, consequently, maintain her relationship to them. Although LinkedIn was not the only tool that the informant used in order to maintain relationships, she had found that it was very useful in relation to the connections that she had established on LinkedIn. The idea of re-establishing a connection was also regarded as extra valuable and rewarding to the informant. She experienced it as very satisfactory to access information on how people from the past were doing and/or how their careers had developed. Several of the people that she had re-connected with through LinkedIn were people that she had considered as lost connections:

Extract: 57

“I thought I’d never hear from them again, and like, here they are on LinkedIn and it’s just wonderful!” (Interview 1)

The informant regularly searched for lost connections and often sent them an e-mail after she had re-connected in order to maintain the connections and to receive additional updates on their lives. The informant noted that the updates gave her access to movements in her acquaintances’ lives that she would otherwise not have a tight enough connection to receive. Consequently, the informant experienced a closer connection to many of her acquaintances, even though they did not have any contact beyond connecting through LinkedIn. Many of the other informants supported this view and stated that although most of their re-connections on LinkedIn never led to additional contact, they still experienced a relationship to people they would otherwise not have a conscious relationship to. To many of the informants the very idea of re-connecting through LinkedIn was a representation of their relationship in itself. For example, one of the informants stated that connecting to former students gave him relief:

Extract 58:

“You sort of establish contact with former students and so on that you can stay in touch with, and you don’t have to go around having a constant bad conscience” (Interview 7)

The informant experienced that once he had established a connection to former students through LinkedIn this link represented that they knew about each other, that they had a relationship and that they could contact each other if they wanted or needed to. This also meant that he did not have to feel guilty about not having regular contact with the person anymore, because they had a connection through LinkedIn.