LinkedIn is by far the biggest professional social network and the second, after Facebook, in the total registered users in the social network world. 120 million register users as of August 2011 in about 200 countries and in 10 languages.
What started as a place to connect those who are hiring with those who are looking for work, and to do that based on personal contacts and recommendations, offers now much more than that. Users can upload photos to help in recognition, they can follow different companies and get notified when a job in one of those becomes available, and they can form a Group. As of 9 months ago, there were 870,612 groups, most of them employment and business related.
Group enables a limited discussion area and moderation by the owners and managers. It can be accessible to members only, or open to all. It is an effective way for B2B advertising, building leadership and driving traffic to your site. Groups draw users for a longer session, experts say, and thus enabling a person to introduce himself and become noticeable. This has become a way for a person to establish himself/herself as experts in their field, on top of being a wonderful way to target customers.
Up until now, users only knew the number of people in a certain group, but this month LinkedIn added Statistics to the Group function to show in a very visual way, the most important facts about the group; a summary, the demographics, the growth and the activity of the group.
Within those tabs you can see the information in greater detail; where, geographically, are most members located, how many active members the group has, the discussion rate and how many people joined recently.
This kind of information, LinkedIn thinks, will give new members more in depth information and make the decision process, whether to join or not, much easier. In marketing, this information gives the business owner information that he did not previously have. If you are a local business owner, the location of the people in the group you are targeting is an important factor.
The statistics shows the growth of the group, a great tool for the group manager, which enables him to see the daily activity and response to ad campaigns.
LinkedIn have been paying attention to its Group function in the past few months, unveiling new features. In November their numbers grew to 131 million members worldwide and 1 million groups.
Why data?
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Sources:
- Global Recruiting Roundtable: LinkedIn Group Stats Summary
- Global Recruiting Roundtable: New On LinkedIn Group Stats
- Lewis Howes: Top 10 Reasons to Start a LinkedIn Group
- LinkedIn- Makeover: Analytics for LinkedIn Groups Group Stats
- LinkedIn Blog: Groups Analytics
- Mashable: Facebook Most Popular Forrester
- Mashable: LinkedIn Dashboard for Groups
- Mashable: LinkedIn Q3 Numbers
- Social Media Examiner: Should You Advertise on Facebook LinkedIn or Twitter
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