With an increasing focus on the development of brands and new and different revenue streams being explored, the big players in social media are set to cement their place online and become sustainable businesses in their own right, and ensure that they will be protected if the bubble ever bursts.
Now Bloomberg are reporting that Twitter and LinkedIn are expecting their advertising revenue to increase dramatically over the coming years. According to the New York based research firm EMarketer, Twitter’s ad revenue is expected to rise to $540 million in 2014 in comparison to the $139.5 million it raised in 2011. Citing increasing popularity outside the U.S., the company’s reliance on the American market will decrease, with the precentage of dollars coming from there decreasing from 90% this year to 83% in 2014.
Also professional-networking site LinkedIn will see ad sales rise over the next few years, with their ad revenue growing from $154.6 million in 2011 to $405.6 million in 2014. Similar to Twitter, the site’s dependence on U.S. dollars will fall from 68% this year to 60% by 2014.
Both sites will be looking beyond their traditional methods of advertising, focusing on their unique qualities and demographic. Twitter, for example, will be placing an emphasis on political ads in line with the U.S. elections this year. Speaking at the AllThingsD’s Dive into Media conference, Twitter CEO Dick Costolo stated that they “have figured out the business…the advertising model is working”.
Twitter has hit trouble over recent days over its censorship policy and the option to block certain tweets. They defended themselves by stating that the new policy allows them to block tweets in specific countries and that originally, if a tweet had to be taken down, they would have to do so globally.
We all know that developing social media profiles can be vital in generating leads for businesses, be it B2B or B2C. Therefore a number of different social media channels are being used to develop businesses but which ones should you be concentrating your efforts on.
Hubspot recently compiled a study which looked at over 5,000 different businesses and their social media efforts, and found that the traffic from LinkedIn generated the highest visitor-to-lead conversion rate at 2.74%, almost three times higher (277%) than both Twitter (.69%) and Facebook (.77%).
The study also found that LinkedIn’s conversion rate was also greater than social media as a channel overall, that is, all of the traffic that came to these businesses via social media, .98% of that traffic converted into leads, compared to LinkedIn’s 2.74%.
The study concluded that the reason behind this is due to the very nature of LinkedIn: it’s a social media site for professionals to help improve their standing, so the target market is very straightforward. Also, when someone visits LinkedIn, they are normally focusing on business which means related content performs better.
Another reason is because of the type of content appearing on the feed is more focused. Instead of being cluttered with personal content, the items and posts displayed are concentrated on marketing or business meaning there’s less posts to digest and a higher chance of a company’s post being noticed on LinkedIn than any other site.
It’s only been two months since LinkedIn relaunched its card scanning app CardMunch, but already it’s been a success as it’s scanned over 2 million different cards or more accurately one million since August 2011. While some may have seen it as a somewhat redundant feature since business cards are becoming a thing of the past, LinkedIn were quite clever in combining the two worlds and making them work in harmony. With the consensus that business cards will sooner or later become redundant, the company are bridging the gap between the two to make the transition from card to LinkedIn account seamless. It also helps that this transition is beneficial for themselves as well as it reinforces their position as the site for professionals.
To highlight this achievement, the site has produced a short infographic detailing how it got there and including some (selective) stats to look at. For example, out of the entire Fortune 500 group, only two companies don’t use the service. Also, when CardMunch was acquired back in January 2011, it had taken a while for the concept to become established, not really gaining any legs until September/October 2011. Unfortunately, they don’t include figures with their graph so its difficult to say how many more scans they got per month but after the relaunch (which resulted in a considerable increase in use) the app seems to be used by more and more professionals to connect.
LinkedIn groups have been around for a long time and with over a million of them in existence, users clearly see then as a great way of engaging with other users on the platform. For all their success though, the feature set within the groups has always been pretty limited but the good news is that today they are launching “Polls” which will be a great new tool to create engagement for group admins.
The funny thing about these polls is that they are yet another example of Linkedin creating carbon copies of Facebook features, and they haven’t even really tried to change the design in any meaningful way. I’ve always been surprised at just how active some people are in groups so it is great to see Linkedin start to offer additional tools. Hopefully this will be the first of many because it would be great to see a much richer experience. As Linkedin are saying themselves about the launch:
A key reason our members use LinkedIn Groups is to share insights with like-minded professionals. Voting on polls now provides the same quick convenience of clicking “Like”, but with also the richer point of view of a comment.
We’ve also seen in testing that many members elaborate further on their choice in the familiar comments area that we’ve provided once you vote in a poll.Plus, in open groups, any member of LinkedIn can vote on a poll, just as they can “Like” any discussion or comment in an open group.
You can see people using these for a whole range of reasons, but I think they are especially useful for companies and brands who want to do some very targeted market research within the business community.
You know the feeling when you’re writing up a job application or if you’re in an interview, you want to impress who could be your potential employers so you try and convince them by using desirable terms to improve your chances. Terms like ‘organised’, ‘effective’, and ‘team player’ can be found as we want to get across our talents and abilities. It’s something that we’ve all been guilty of at some point in our lives and it’s something that LinkedIn see on a daily basis.
With that in mind, LinkedIn have decided to round off the year by revealing the most overused buzzwords used by professionals when describing themselves on their profiles. Out of 135 million professional profiles, they found that the most overused buzzword in the US was ‘Creative’ followed by ‘Organisational’ and ‘Effective’.
Internationally, other overused buzzwords include ‘Ereative’ (Australia, Canada, Germany, Netherlands & UK), ‘Dynamic’ (France), ‘Effective’ (India) and ‘Motivated’ (Ireland). So tell us, what buzzwords are you guilty of using to describe yourself? And for those who own businesses, what unique terms have people used when applying for a position?
In the last week, the noise around a possible Facebook IPO has been starting to ramp up with Mark Zuckerberg apparently starting to tell employees that it was going to be happening sooner rather than later. Now one of the early investors in Facebook and the co-founder of Linkedin Reid Hoffman is having his say with some comments that seem to confirm that one of the biggest consumer web IPOs ever is going to happen in the first half of 2012. Hoffman is in the UK on a drive to bring some of the Silicon Valley magic across the Atlantic, and speaking to the Sunday Telegraph, he gives some great insight into the thinking behind taking the social networking giant public
I suspect that Mark Zuckerberg will choose to go public because the company has to put in a lot of financial work in order to make the necessary filings and so he might as well make sure he benefits employees and ultimately the company from the level of work that’s already involved.
Of course, Hoffman is in a great position to be able to speak about taking a social network public having just done so with Linkedin in May of this year. While Facebook have been relatively slow to go public given their spectacular growth and domination, Hoffman does think that the right time to do so is fast approaching:
Going public would benefit Facebook in lots of ways – namely having public currency to do acquisitions. So Mark Zuckerberg might as well get the benefit as well as the cost. Given that logic – I would suspect that some time in first half of next year, he will engage in the IPO process
Having said that, Facebook are pretty much having their hands forced by the fact that they have over 500 shareholders (an automatic trigger in the USA that more or less forces you to go public). While going public will have advantages and make a lot of the employees, founders and investors very rich, it does have its downsides as well.
Up until now, Facebook has been able to operate playing to its own rules with Zuckerberg very much taking the helm of the company and taking lots of risks. As soon as they IPO though, the game will change with all their public finances being made public and the board increasingly having to answer to shareholders and hit targets. All this IPO talk leaking out into the public though is no accident, and is a well planned PR move from Facebook to start getting people ready for the event.
The financials have to be released in April of 2012 and from then on, it’s only a matter of time before the general public can grab a piece of the world’s biggest social network with any IPO likely to be just before the summer of next year. Exciting times ahead if you are a Facebook employee or early investor.
LinkedIn has always prided itself in how it creates connections and networks between fellow professionals in the online world. However, such a process doesn’t happen as smoothly in the real world where it’s very difficult to access even a quarter of the information found on the site on a business card.
So to bridge the gap between networking in the physical and online world, LinkedIn have launched a revamped business card app called CardMunch. The app is designed to help users develop a better idea of other professionals by allowing them access to their LinkedIn profile when they scan their business card.
As LinkedIn say themselves in their latest blog post, millions of business cards are exchanged every day, and with their mobile services growing by 400 per cent year-over-year in page views, the move makes a lot of sense.
The app has been simplified to include just three options: card capture, contact list and LinkedIn profile. Once you scan a card, all the information related in their LinkedIn profile is available to view. So you get to see their career, experience, connections, education and other associated details that they have made available, making the app tempting for those who want this information available to them immediately.
Are Business Cards Still Relevant?
By designing the app in conjunction with business cards instead of aiming to replace them, LinkedIn are bridging the gap between networking in the physical and online worlds. However, there are one or two things that LinkedIn should address if this app is to become popular.
The main one is that while business cards are still widely used, they are slowly losing relevance as more and more things become digitalised. That’s not to say that LinkedIn are wrong to focus their efforts on business cards, but it would have also made sense for them to develop the app with one eye on the future.
An alternative method for getting the same info through smartphones or wireless would have really catered for those who don’t use business cards, or feel that their relevance has diminished over the years. For example, being able to generate a specialised QR code for others to scan and receive the same information would have certainly made the app more appealing for users to download.
The second suggestion, and a very small one at that, would be to expand the notes section to include calendar functionality. While there are already many apps and programs that can do this, it would be a handy feature to have if you were, for example, organising a business meeting with someone you just met or following up on a idea and needed an automatic reminder.
That said, LinkedIn have released a solid app that professionals will definitely find useful. But since it’s the first release, there’s a lot of potential to develop the app further and make it into a must-have for all professionals. The app is available to download for iPhone.
The Digital Marketing Institute is running a training courses entitled “LinkedIn Training for Business Professionals”
LinkedIn Course for Business:
With over 110 million members, LinkedIn is the world’s largest professional network. LinkedIn connects you to your contacts and helps you exchange ideas, knowledge and opportunities with a broad network of professionals. LinkedIn is now seen as a key tool for professionals and those not using the tool to its full potential are missing out.
Date: Wednesday 23rd November
Venue: Dublin City
Cost: 297.00 EUR (247.00 EUR Early Bird)
Contact Digital Marketing Institute at +353 1 2711 888
Overview: This LinkedIn for Business professionals Training Course has been designed to assist professionals to get the most out of their LinkedIn connections. Whether you are just starting out or are a seasoned LinkedIn professional, this training course can help you accelerate your online profile and personal brand.
Module 1: How to Create Your LinkedIn Profile
Topics
Developing a good LinkedIn profile
The difference between a Professional Headline and a Title
Including previous jobs and education.
Adding Twitter and blogging to LinkedIn
Why and how to personalise your Public Profile URL.
How to write your summary
How to add specialities
Why and how to use Applications like WordPress and SlideShare
How to build relationships with other people through your Profile.
Lead generation using LinkedIn
Adding Video
How to position yourself as an expert.
Do's and Don'ts regarding your LinkedIn Profile.
Module 2: Building and Expanding Your LinkedIn Network
Developing your core network
5 quick ways that LinkedIn helps you to build your network.
Using Groups to expand your network with the right people.
Finding the right Groups for you.
Dealing with invites
Case Studies
Asking for Recommendations
Do's and Don'ts regarding building your network.
Module 3: Personal and Company Branding
Differences between personal and company branding on LinkedIn.
How to use your LinkedIn Profile for branding.
Status Updates and Twitter.
Case Studies
Using Groups for personal/company branding
Free tools that saves you time
Do's and Don'ts regarding branding via LinkedIn.
Module 4: Finding New Customers using Your Professional LinkedInNetwork
Why having an great Profile is not enough.
Finding new customers via LinkedIn.
Tools that you can use to find new customers
Strategies for finding and communicating with new customers
Avoiding costly mistakes
Case Studies
Contact Digital Marketing Institute at +353 1 2711 888
Prerequisites are that you have a LinkedIn profile enabled.
Investing in stocks is a risky business at the best of times and investing in social media stocks that have just IPO’d is an even riskier business. Last week Linkedin announced results that blew away expectations but just a week later they are feeling the full force of the market and have lost close to 40% of their overall valuation in just 3 days. The stock which had been trading as high as $112 at the end of last week is in free fall and last night closed at just $73. The company which only went public in May at the price of $45 (this doubled in the first days trading) has seen a huge fluctuation in it’s share price and although many are still making a profit on their initial stake there will be many who bought in last week at a high after seeing all the positive news and have now been stung badly. The alarming thing is that the stock seems to show no signs of stopping the slide and it could be back to the original IPO price if things keep going like this.
It will be interesting to see how investors react to the other IPOs that are on the way now including Groupon, Zynga and ultimately Facebook next year. Many people are in these stocks to make a quick buck because of all the hype around social media and with the markets acting so turbulently investors seem to be pulling their cash out as quickly as they put it in. There has been a lot of talk about a bubble in social media stocks and this could be the start of them getting a pretty sharp dose of reality and coming back to earth.
Many businesses are still unconvinced of how useful LinkedIn will be for them, whether employees should be encouraged to use it or whether there is any real business value in the site. I wanted to put together some essential stats that show just how big LinkedIn has become and why you can’t afford to ignore it. In addition to stats that show the reach of the site such as 100 million users, I wanted to delve a bit deeper to find out more about who’s using it and how.
Tech and finance are the leading sectors
Research compiled in July 2011by Amodiovalerio Verde gives an indepth look at the demographic breakdown of LinkedIn users which is useful for people targeting other individuals or businesses, but most interesting out of this is the breakdown of industry sector. Tech is leading here at 15.3% of users, but interestingly this is followed closely by Finance at 12.9%. This shows that corporate social networking is also making its way into more traditional sectors, while others such as Media are coming in surprisingly low at 3.3%
More than 80% of members are decision makers
This is likely to get a lot of people’s attention, as it shows the potential to generate real business leads and referrals through LinkedIn. In an infographic released by LinkedIn to show the real make-up of LinkedIn members, they revealed that over 80% of members on there are the decision makers in an area of business in their organisation. Focused marketing efforts on LinkedIn can generate real results if you invest time in building relationships, evidenced by the significant amount of key decision makers on the site.
50% of Fortune 100 companies hire through LinkedIn
Showing just how pervasive LinkedIn has become in recruitment, this stat, released just over 10 months ago, finds that over 50% of Fortune 100 companies now use LinkedIn for their recruitment strategy. It demonstrates the value in really using LinkedIn when jobseeking and the level of companies that use this alongside more traditional recruitment methods. In addition, top execs from all Fortune 500 companies are on LinkedIn, proving that it’s an invaluable business tool across the board at all levels
62% log in from home
This is an interesting stat, pulled together for the UK specifically. The findings released, revealed that the vast majority of time spent accessing LinkedIn is done from home – at 62%, with 38% logging in from work. This is not necessarily how you would expect LinkedIn to be used and it could suggest that there is a large mix of jobseekers and small business owners on the site, who would typically use it from home. I suspect what’s also at play here is people that are covertly looking for a new job without wanting to be caught at work, so they build out their profile and network at home.
Sales jobs lead the pack
As you might expect, sales is the leading job function on LinkedIn in terms of active members, as shown on the image below. There are 6,080,000 members on LinkedIn that work in sales, followed by academics at 5,277,000 and admin at 5,303k. To put it in the context of LinkedIn’s 100 million total members, over 6% of members are working within sales. As a b2b tool it shows there’s a lot of people on there looking for business in a crowded marketplace. If you want LinkedIn to work for you in terms of generating revenue, you’ll need to work hard on your relationships and community to stand out from the crowd :
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With an increasing focus on the development of brands and new and different revenue streams being explored, the big players in social media are set to cement their place online and become sustainable businesses in their own right, and ensure that they will be protected if the bubble ever bursts.
