Abstact: Communication in social networks is becoming more and more informal and full of visual and video forms of content that dominates the text and this reflects in redefining the meaning of the “dialogue” concept. Consumers are increasingly using emoticons, emotstickers, memes, videos, gifs and other formats which represent in a syncretic way their thoughts, opinions or intentions. Social networks rely on more interesting and convenient interface, desktop versions are strongly influenced by possibilities of navigation in mobile applications and this leads to more informal online environment even for strongly business-oriented social networks like LinkedIn. The article aims to examine the most commonly used formats of the mentioned ones, to distinguish the genre they use, to differentiate effective formats for the business environment in the context of successfully built personal brand and to track trends in business correspondence online. The text tries to identify the right approaches, genres and exact moments for multimedia usage by users in order to build a successful professional profile on LinkedIn.

Keywords: business communication, visual rhetoric, virtual rhetoric, business netiquette, personal brand, visual formats, interactivity, online content.

Rhetoric and Communications E-journal, Issue 25, November 2016, rhetoric.bg/, journal.rhetoric.bg, ISSN 1314-4464

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