It’s the forgotten little brother of the social media family, but LinkedIn might yet have its time.

There is a climate of (very well-founded) fear about data and privacy on social networks. The Delete Facebook campaign is thriving, Instagram has choked off developers, and Twitter is still plodding along. But there’s never much talk about LinkedIn. Or indeed, its power for football clubs.

This week, in an interview with French website Ecofoot, Toulouse FC’s Marketing Manager, Boris Laffargue spoke about how his club are using the platform.

A quick Google search will throw up lots of articles focused on social media strategy. You can find reams of information about how football clubs use Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. You can find case studies, strategies, expositions and even detailed breakdowns of how many followers each club has and how much value they can bring to a brand who might wish to sponsor them.

Social media game is vitally important. But you’ll find little info about a club’s LinkedIn profile.

You’re unlikely to see much ‘#FanEngagement’ from a football club’s account, of course. It’s neither the time nor the place. But it should be a useful tool for interacting with the public, or at least those within the sports industry space.

“When I post a piece of content on LinkedIn,” Laffargue told Ecofoot, “I have in mind that I want to highlight certain characteristics about the TFC brand. For example, its digital appetite or its principle partners, who differentiate TFC from other clubs.”

It’s not just about posting news coming out of the club, and ideally not just for announcing new partnerships or sponsors. LinkedIn is a network of professional people who are there to connect and to do business.

Finding new talent is where most people may see the value in LinkedIn. But it could be for shouting about the value your club produces for its sponsors, or for honing a unique voice which shows that your club’s bottom line isn’t just about making money but about something deeper which allows it to stand out from the rest.

Maybe in these days of suspicion about data and privacy, with the negative press that the bigger social media networks are getting, it’s time to look at the humble LinkedIn account as an opportunity rather than an afterthought.