Evolution of LinkedIn | SocialExcerpts

SoEx

October 22, 2012

For many businesses, Twitter, Facebook and Google+, is the beginning and the end of social media strategy. But remember, a strategy that goes no further than an active twitter feed or a balanced Facebook approach and measures success solely on the total sum of “Likes”, is one that will inevitably fail to reach its potential. Now the businesses that are ignoring LinkedIn may be missing out on the opportunity to engage with a significant target audience.

Many have already evaluated the significance of the recent changes/ redesign of LinkedIn’s Company Pages. It is considered to be most cogent step from a social platform for professionals to interact and seek job opportunities to a fully integrated solution for both businesses and individuals.

Though the network was born in 2003, it wasn’t until 5 years later that they first introduced a directory with company profiles. Some social media evangelist’s saw the potential straight away and were the driving force in making the change a success. After all, any platform with 50 million user database, as LinkedIn by 2009, is worth a try.

In 2010, there were two very compelling developments. Users were able to “follow” companies for the first time, thus allowing companies to extend their reach. Then, the Company Page feature was released later that year, which granted companies more liberty over their LinkedIn presence with functions such as company updates.

The company had all the right reasons to celebrate in 2012 when LinkedIn reached the milestone of 175 million active users. Digital PR agencies, in-house professionals started to keep hawk-eye on this site and it didn’t take long before LinkedIn hit another milestone- over 2 million company pages were now active.

But LinkedIn didn’t relax at this point. Instead, while the user database was rising and its company roaster was flourishing, improvements were being made to the Company Pages. The redesign results were announced in September 2012.

Wider photo cover, insight dashboard, targeted company updates with performance metrics and the integration of Company Pages into LinkedIn mobile app, the revamp was received with a warm heart, almost universally. Thus, the platform is even more potentially equipped to boost business-to-business relationships and enhance consumer interactions.

Of course, you can argue that Facebook, Twitter and Google+ are the important facets within a social media strategy, but LinkedIn can now be your not-a-secret but ever-so-powerful weapon.

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