Augmenting Surveys with Social Media Data: A Probabilistic Framework for LinkedIn Data Linkage.

Introduction & BackgroundLinkedIn, with its extensive global network of over 900 million members across more than 200 countries, presents a unique repository for examining labour market dynamics, professional development, and the impact of social networking on employment opportunities. Despite its potential, LinkedIn's wealth of data on professional trajectories, skills, and labour market outcomes remains largely untapped in survey research due to challenges in data collection. Objectives & ApproachThis paper introduces a novel methodology for integrating LinkedIn data with survey responses using data from the fourteenth wave of the Innovation Panel (IP14) of Understanding Society: The UK Household Longitudinal Study (UKHLS), conducted in 2021. In IP14, we probed the extent of LinkedIn usage among the UK population and assessed users' willingness to link their LinkedIn profiles with their survey responses. Those consenting to link their accounts were asked for specific details — namely their first and last names, employer, and job title — to enable profile identification on LinkedIn. Faced with the unavailability of a unique platform identifier and the cessation of LinkedI