GDPR and LinkedIn Lead Generation

Living in the social media era, brought on many benefits on every scale of life; from much faster connection with family and friends, to managing a whole business operation solely by pressing the buttons on your keyboard.  The benefits from social media marketing usage on personal and professional level are numerous, however over the years the most pressing issue always floating around but never getting resolved is privacy.

The restrictions around privacy and how much of it can be shared is very tricky for social media giants to get behind. After many scandals about the abusing of privacy rights came to light, the European Union decided that it is time to take the matters of settling the issue vigorously. This is very GDPR comes into the spotlight. GDPR basically is General Data Protection Regulation brought by EU, or simply put it represents data protection and privacy of individuals inside of the European Union. The main focus of this legislation is to put in place several important and main rules for the social media users, such as the right to erase permanently any data from the web, to restrict the sharing of any information and lastly, the ultimate right that the user has of being informed if their data has been used and shared.

Now here comes the important question of how this new regulation that will come into force on 25^th of May, will affect the users and as well the business on LinkedIn. In general not much will change for both parties. Users will still have the utmost control of what they post on their accounts, who they want to connect with and the messages that they will receive. On the other hand there will be only slight changes for the business that administer their business mostly through LinkedIn. Since it is in the hands of the network (social media platform) itself to be compliant with the laws and regulation that EU has implemented, the tech companies and digital agency’s only concern would be an ethical and rational way of managing their day to day work duties. Additionally, favorably to the digital businesses whose main objective is working through social media channels, the GDPR is designed in a way that leaves space and for a few exceptions and permissions that guarantee a fluid way of doing business while still staying in the boundaries and regulations implied. However on the other hand – the considerable difference is going to be felt in large by the big social media platforms for instance Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn etc. The implementation of the strict regulation would change the core of how these platforms have been initially designed. And according to the EU, some hefty fines would follow if the rules are not applied respectfully.

At the end of the day, it is clear to understand that the buzz around GDPR that has been going on around the past few months – was only that, a buzz which in the long term will not affect majorly business processes and users. Nevertheless the social platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn etc. are compelled to assuredly resolve the issue around the privacy and sharing of private information and bring their platforms to the required level where private information is protected, secured and encrypted. That way the chain of consuming information online starting from the user up to the business trying to sell to the potential customer could be a safe environment protecting both parties.