LinkedIn recently hit 100M users. If you were in charge at LinkedIn, what would be your strategic goals for the next several years? How would you achieve them?
In a few short years after it was founded, LinkedIn has become a profitable networking site for professionals. Its ability to monetize its platform is especially impressive considering the fact that LinkedIn is competing in a concentrated market where a couple of large social sites are excelling due to their large user bases supporting strong network effects. At the same time though, its current strategy may not sustainable over the long-term given the competitive environment.
In order to protect the integrity of its content and the value it provides to its users, LinkedIn should continue to control its software applications and emphasis on professional services. However, LinkedIn needs to find new methods of growing its user base to compensate for its narrow focus. In order to grow its network, LinkedIn should direct its resources to recruiting corporate customers and building tools that better connect employees within their organization and industry in which it competes. By signing on more corporations, LinkedIn will have access to a larger pool of individual users that will be more inclined to register, thereby growing the network. In order to make its services more appealing, LinkedIn could integrate conferencing services and data management. This development would be costly, though it provides added value and incentives for corporate users to contract with LinkedIn.
Going after the corporate buyer could be a smart move for LinkedIn, but would be a dramatic shift from its initial focus of the individual professional. Not saying that's necessarily a bad thing, but it is a dynamic paradigm shift for the company's strategy. I see plenty of benefits for building an integrated platform that allows LinkedIn to capitalize on an entire corporation's contacts, not just the individuals. I could also see corporations using LinkedIn as an integrated recruiting engine/platform for corporations. A lot of corporations are already using it to post jobs and recruit talent, it's an excellent tool that will continue for years to come...
ReplyDeleteGreat view point!! I just think that LinkedIn is already falling behind if they are not moving toward a dual SNS-PNS. With the number of users already on Facebook and MySpace, LinkedIn might be in a slight disadvantage.
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