Indians are in love with social networking. This year Indians became the 2nd largest group on Facebook and also on the professional social network, LinkedIn.
In June 2011 WATBlog reported that Indians constitute more than 10 million registered users on LinkedIn, which makes India the 2nd largest community on LinkedIn. In less than 6 months that number has increased to more than 13 million. This is quite a significant number as LinkedIn has a total user base of about 120 million.
Professional networking is becoming quite popular in India. This is aided by the fact that LinkedIn has realized the potential of the Asia-Pacific region and India in particular and have ramped up their marketing efforts in the region. Earlier this year LinkedIn setup its Asia-Pacific headquarter in Singapore and also opened a R&D centre in Bangalore, which further highlighted their interest in the region. It has not only established itself as the premier professional network, but also provides other crucial services like customized marketing solutions and even works with organizations to help them in social recruitment.
These services, though new to India, have received favorable response so far and it is believed could transform the Indian professional services world completely.
LinkedIn India’s Country Manager, Hari Krishnan, has made it clear that the professional social networking major does not intend to just increase its user base in the country. They want to do so in conjunction with engaging existing users in ‘focused and relevant discussions’. The new dashboard will allow group administrators to better understand and control the group dynamics. Information regarding demographics, growth and activity can now be accessed through this dashboard.
Contrary to popular belief LinkedIn is inferior to Facebook and Twitter only in terms of user base strength and to advertising revenue. When it comes to the impact and relevance on content present on these social networks, LinkedIn is slightly ahead of the competition. Content shared on LinkedIn receives on an average 1.5 clicks, which is higher than the 1.1 clicks that other social networks receive. The reason for this is that LinkedIn being a professional network a very select group of individuals are part of it and the content shared is nearly 100% relevant in most circles.
How has your LinkedIn experience been so far? Does the content you share on LinkedIn get better response than your shares on Facebook and Twitter? Do write in and tell us your views.
