LinkedIN, the world's largest online professional network boasts of 120 million users worldwide. Among new users are ballet dancers, lawyers and yoga professionals. Even as the network expands, LinkedIN is adding new features to make it more relevant to the community at large-that includes professionals, advertisers, recruiters and so on. ET met up with Arvind Rajan, managing director & VP, Asia Pacific & Japan, LinkedIN to discuss new trends in professional networking. Excerpts:
Ever since social media started it has been a way to network, collaborate, and talk to people and friends. What are some of the new trends you are observing?
People are using LinkedIN to establish their professional identity. They are connecting with professionals, they find new ones and they are found. But the place where we are spending lot of money and time is insights and opportunities that we can bring to for our members.
We have 120 million professionals - our members share lot of information on LinkedIN because we are able to lay an identity over that content. Let's say you want to know what people are saying about the new Blackberry. You can go to Twitter and get a sense of that.
On LinkedIN we have a product called Signal (launched a few months back) that allows you to know what people are saying by industry, by company, by location or even by seniority. So you can know what are people saying in one country versus another, one company versus another.
We have enough scale now compared to five years back when we were 10 million people. Users are also building network of connections, filtering news and information and forming groups - both local and global.
How many advertisers do you have in India? How are they using it?
We have more than 100 advertisers globally. I will give an example of how some advertisers are using it in India. American Express (in India) built a separate micro site which allows members to register on the site using your LinkedIN identity. When they did activity on the site it got shared - it was getting people to recommend others for an Amex cards. A year ago they would just put a banner ad - now they are engaging.
Another example is Volkswagen - which is doing campaigns to target the right kind of buyers for its portfolio of cars. Banking, financial services, insurance companies, high-tech companies, auto majors have been leaders in India in advertising. They can customize messages - target the right audience. We are getting lot of B2B advertising - for instance, on LinkedIN you can reach a CIO to sell or buy a service.
You have 120 million users at present. How do you see the growth from here?
Things are just getting started. Globally there are about 640 million professionals and we have 120 million as members. We still have a long way to go, but it has been a good start. As the network grows - 120 million people connected to each other - the network density grows. And as that density grows you can do lot more. You can become smarter professionals. You can map up your career - if you are graduating with a certain degree, what's the path you will take?
We can tell a graduate today, what say, a BA in Anthropology from Brown University in the US who graduated 20 years back did and help you with new opportunities. Mobile usage is growing year-on-year. We are investing in mobile as a business. Our purpose is not just reaching people on mobile phone via linkedin.com but leverage the network to meet your goals.
How are you relevant to marketers and advertisers?
You can build followers. Marketers can see how their messages are virally spread. We also continue to develop insights around what a piece of advertising is doing - how people are interacting. How to build an effective marketing campaign. In 2003 if you asked a focused group about LinkedIN, they would ask why would I need that. Today it's different.
Your target is 640 million professionals and in India 80-90 million. You still have a long way to go. Lot of people are fine by not being on LinkedIN. What do you plan to do about it?
When we set up India operations in 2009 we had 3 - 4 million members. Now we have 12 million in India. The growth has been pretty good. LinkedIN users come from one getting the other. Initially it is IT, telecom, financial services, consulting media and others. In US we have 70% of all professionals.
In West Europe 50% professionals - now we are ubiquitous. We are growing. It took us 477 days to get the first one million members when we launched in 2003. We get to that number in seven days now. And now we have whole lot of new professionals joining-be it ballet dancers, yoga teachers or lawyers.
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