Tuesday, May 20, 2008

LinkedIN: A Better Way to Build a Social Network

Social networks are slippery.

By their nature, they invite competition because the user base is only as interested as the number of friends they have (which eventually slows in growth) and the number of things they can do (which can feature creep people to death).

Corporations believe they need to be involved with them because there are millions of waiting eyeballs. Myspace and Facebook have 58 million and 22 million people respectively. However, nobody is quite sure how to use them to promote -- and more importantly sell -- wares other than music, movies and comedy.

There's even been talk that the network growth is slowing, although I don't buy into that theory. Eventually, triple digit growth is impossible.

These networks aren't just about selling.

The social network that shows the most promise -- and the one that has grown 361 percent in the past year -- is LinkedIn, the business networking site where people can upload their resume, give and receive testimonials from friends and meet other business contacts.

On the surface, it sounds boring. It's Web 2.0 for the serious professional. It's Monster.com without the spam. It's networking with the bells and whistles.

In a modern world, people are the driving force in any good company. As businesses decentralize operations and put more decision making in the hands of employees, it's important to find the right people.

LinkedIn allows people to effectively use social media to target candidates, get references from people you know and hire candidates (or find a company) most suited to your needs.

Beyond the obvious business attraction, the company has also taken a slow growth approach to social networking. Instead of capturing every eyeball, they opted to target specific eyeballs and grow around that.

They didn't rush out to be first. They didn't try to beat the crowd. They watched. Observed. And built a network with a solid foundation and a great user base.

First doesn't always win. Sometimes best makes a comeback.

Posted By Brad at 08:47 PM
Permanent Link: LinkedIN: A Better Way to Build a Social Network | Comments (3)

(3) Comments on LinkedIN: A Better Way to Build a Social Network

The only reason LinkedIn is seeing traffic growth is because 250,000+ people got laid off in the U.S. during Q1 and people are updating their resume. It has nothing to do with LinkedIn having more 'promise' than other social networks.

Look at the Alexa graphs of LI and Career Builder. They're almost identical. There's nothing special happening at LinkedIn.

Comments by Chad D. : Thursday, May 22, 2008 at 02:21 PM

Hey Chad:

I would disagree based on my conversations at SXSW this year. The talk was about LinkedIN's long-term strategy to build a useable and reliable base, that focuses on business communication.

It's much easier to wrangle money around that base than a distributed one, at least for now.

LinkedIN has focused on usability and simple features, something the other platforms hasn't done. They haven't tried to capture the audience immediately, outgrowing their technology.

Comments by Brad King : Thursday, May 22, 2008 at 09:08 PM

Hey Chad:

I would disagree based on my conversations at SXSW this year. The talk was about LinkedIN's long-term strategy to build a useable and reliable base, that focuses on business communication.

It's much easier to wrangle money around that base than a distributed one, at least for now.

LinkedIN has focused on usability and simple features, something the other platforms hasn't done. They haven't tried to capture the audience immediately, outgrowing their technology.

Comments by Brad King : Thursday, May 22, 2008 at 09:11 PM

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