Weak ties more beneficial than close friends: LinkedIn study

LinkedIn conducted a social experiment on more than 20 million customers from 2015 to 2019 and found that weaker contacts are more beneficial than close friends.

Turning its users into guinea pigs, researchers from LinkedIn, MIT, Stanford, and Harvard business school conducted a study on a social scientific theory known as the ‘Strength of Weak Ties’.

Concentrating on how weaker ties can open doors to preferred job prospects that stronger ones do not, LinkedIn randomly shuffled the proportion of weak and strong contacts suggested by its ‘People You May Know’ algorithm. The company found that many users have benefitted in finding their preferred jobs through weak ties.

So, it can be seen as one of the first studies to prove that PR matters and networking is serious business.

In response to inquiries over user privacy, LinkedIn stated that the research was carried out in accordance with the user privacy policy.