Written by: Jordan Barela 

Social media is constantly changing. Like the technology in our phones, laptops and tablets, the social media that is intertwined advances when the technology upgrades. Social media is so integral to everyday life that, now, everybody and their mother has a Facebook profile—literally.

Even though Facebook has been at top of the social media ladder since its debut, could a new social media site come and push the ubiquitous site from the top? When Facebook first came out it quickly dethroned MySpace as the king of social media sites. As the number of MySpace profiles decreased, the number of Facebook profiles increased. However, is Facebook soon to suffer the same fate?

Social media sites such as Twitter and Tumblr are very popular but cater to select people. This is an advantage for Facebook because it is one of the only social media sites that allow users to stay more connected to friends, family and colleagues. Facebook offers a more general user experience as it has everything that people expect from a social media site. However, LinkedIn could possibly replace Facebook one day.

LinkedIn is the leading social media site that allows users to network professionally, connect with companies that post their information on the site and even search for jobs. After exploring and researching what the site has to offer, I decided to create a profile.

Once I finished creating my profile and adding a small amount of information about my education and previous work experience, I explored the site even further. LinkedIn is like Facebook in the social aspect. Once you create an account, you can use LinkedIn to keep in contact with your friends and colleagues. Also similar to Facebook, you can explore interests that pertain to certain careers and follow one or multiple pages of different companies to stay up to date on what they share through the site.

Another feature that I found really useful is that you can also join groups. This allows you to network even more, as you can meet new people, including potential employers. Both Facebook and LinkedIn are similar in a multitude of ways. The biggest factor that sets LinkedIn apart from Facebook is that you can use it as a tool to find a job and network and still use it as a social media site. This is definitely a plus for a majority of college students.

So the ten million dollar question: Can LinkedIn replace Facebook one day? LinkedIn could possibly replace Facebook, but then again, it possibly could not. There is no sure answer. While LinkedIn offers both a social media site and a job-searching tool all in one, not everyone will create an account. In fact most people, including me, have probably never heard of LinkedIn until recently. A different social media site could possibly become more popular than both Facebook and LinkedIn combined. The answer to this question depends on how we, the users of social media sites, choose to answer, or which social media site we choose to use.