In October, LinkedIn announced the global launch of LinkedIn Events. This feature allows members to create, share, and discover professional events. This program hopes to foster offline community building and help members nurture deeper professional relationships. LinkedIn data shows the chances of people accepting connection requests on LinkedIn increases two-fold if they have attended a face-to-face meeting.

What is LinkedIn Events?

With LinkedIn Events, all members can create and join professional events. They will be able to have conversations with other attendees on the platform and stay in touch online after the event ends. LinkedIn Events also allow members to create private events to enable members to have safe conversations in a trusted closed-door environment. Invite filters allow members to tap into their professional network and find members based on their industry, school, company, and location to help curate their guest list.

Ajay Datta, Head of Product, India at LinkedIn had this to say:

“At LinkedIn, our core focus is to help our members connect and build lasting professional relationships. Face-to-face interactions are key to realizing this vision and bringing online communities to life. With this launch, our members now have a safe and trusted avenue to engage with their network online and offline. We see them using this product to host networking meet-ups, workshops, alumni meet, product launches, and other face-to-face gatherings.”

LinkedIn Events is the first product to be built out of the Bengaluru Research and Development Center for a global audience. The Bengaluru R&D Center also conceptualized and built the LinkedIn Lite Android app. Since 2017, it has scaled to more than 70 emerging markets across the globe and supports more than 21 languages. As of October, the app had seen more than 10 million downloads on the Google Play Store.

Datta added this to his statement:

“After the launch of LinkedIn Lite, I am excited to roll out our first ‘made in India, for the world’ product out of LinkedIn’s Bengaluru R&D Center. With Events, we are now taking on a larger mandate of building products to foster offline communities and help our members connect offline. This launch showcases LinkedIn’s commitment to the Bengaluru R&D Center and in the team’s talent in building world-class products.”

In addition to LinkedIn events, the team is developing and testing other methods to connect members such as business cards, proximity-based Bluetooth beacons, and QR codes.

How to Create a LinkedIn Event

1. Visit the “Community” panel found on the left side of the newsfeed and click “+Create.”
2. Enter a description, date and time, and venue information for the event.
3. Invite your connections using a number of filters including location, company, industry, and school.

Though optional, sharing the event as opposed is highly recommended. This allows you to leverage the power of the feed to reach relevant attendees.

You can easily track attendees and invitees from the event page. The event page also allows you to post updates and interact with other attendees. The LinkedIn algorithm automatically provides timely and relevant notifications to attendees to ensure they don’t miss any important updates about your event. Members who have joined the event can also invite people from their own networks to attend.

Finding Relevant Professional Events to Attend

As a member, you can also search LinkedIn to find professional events. You will see invites in you’re my network tab. You can do the event and choose to attend from there. Look through your LinkedIn feed to discover events that people in your network have shared. Once you have chosen to attend an event, you will be able to see the details of who else is going so you can connect with other attendees. You’ll be able to share updates along with photos and videos on a dedicated event page and in your main feed. You will be able to continue to interact with other attendees and organizers both during and after the event.

LinkedIn began running a pilot program of LinkedIn Events in key metropolitan cities around the world last November. Two members share their experiences in the blog post announcing the global rollout.

Michael Quinn, Ernest & Young Senior manager said:

“What I really like about LinkedIn Events is the fact that I can plan an event with my network and not be required to go to another platform to organize the event. I’ve organized events all across the country, and LinkedIn Events made it incredibly easy for me to market those events and invite my local connections to that specific location. Since I was sharing the event through a post, it also enabled my network to share the event with people they felt would be interested in attending.”

Anna McAfee, a community creator, and educator said:

“What I really like about LinkedIn Events is the fact that I can plan an event with my network and not be required to go to another platform to organize the event. I’ve organized events all across the country, and LinkedIn Events made it incredibly easy for me to market those events and invite my local connections to that specific location. Since I was sharing the event through a post, it also enabled my network to share the event with people they felt would be interested in attending.”

Now that you can use LinkedIn Events much the same way you can use Facebook Events, will you be interested in finding events to attend in your local area? Will you be using it as another platform to share the events you are hosting?

I’d love to hear thoughts. Talk to me in the comments below.