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Why it matters to be LinkedIn

This article from Rowena Mason appeared recently in the Telegraph.co.uk…

LinkedIn doesn’t look that snazzy or have the new trend excitement ofTwitter.

But in the last few weeks, the online company has embarked on an aggressive PR push to publicise the fact that it’s adding 1m members every three weeks, including financial services members up 35pc and banking members up 43pc.

This has got me, a committed LinkedIn agnostic, wondering: does its usefulness actually outweigh its dullness? And is its professional focus a blessing or a burden in the current environment?

It certainly doesn’t seem to care that it’s less cool than Facebook or MySpace or Bebo. It doesn’t invite you to “poke” people for the sheer laughs, play you free music or publish pictures of your drunken friends in embarrassing situations.

As its former chief executive Dan Nye has said: “We’re not going to have people sending electronic hamburgers to each other.” But while it might not be the best place for virtual snacking, it might find you a job.

If the marketing team are to be believed, the redundancy-fearing masses are getting their CVs out there and the newly unemployed are trying to make connections with those who are still hiring.

The team also says that far from being embarrassed about its business aspirations (see Facebook, where corporate is a dirty word), it is proudly engaged in the difficult business of making money out of the internet backed by a number of venture capital investors.

It does this in four ways, with 25pc of revenue from each stream: advertising, job classifieds, subscriptions for premium members and specific packages for corporate recruiters. Deloitte technology consultant Tomas Jones points out that the value in LinkedIn is the attractiveness of its members (university educated, average salary £70k) to advertisers.

LinkedIn won’t give me an exact figure for just how much money they’re making but the company says it’s been profitable for three years. Just over a year ago, they were targeting revenue of $75m-$100m and looking at a possible flotation in the future.

However, to inject a healthy dose of PR-scepticism, LinkedIn’s 36m members look a little paltry in comparison to the 150m Facebook Goliath. And perhaps more importantly, you do have to ask whether it’s being hit hard by a fall in job-related revenue.

Clues: 1) they won’t tell me how much advertising/job listings have dropped; and 2) they’re quite happy to point out that the number of people job-seeking (the ones who don’t pay) has doubled, but remain silent on corporate subscriptions (the ones with the budgets).

I haven’t quite decided where I stand yet…. but confess I would get some pleasure from seeing the business-like underdog outshine its singing-and-dancing competitors.

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