LinkedIn Community - Can we do better?

Today I came across one great article “Getting the most out of LinkedIn”, where one well-connected and knowledgeable professional speaking about LinkedIn as a huge virtual conference, exhibition or gathering attended by millions of professionals directly or indirectly related to your sphere. He calls Linkedin as a place where you can find familiar “virtual coffee breaks”, chats, new acquaintances and discussions in specialist subject areas.

I can say it’s hard not to agree with all above said as Linkedin is a real one-stop-shop for today’s business networking and interaction, especially in those IT enabled areas, curiously enough but the person I was talking about belongs to the mining industry and boasts more than 500 connections and 2 million (other in 2nd, 3rd degrees) professionals in his network. I’ve been seeing people from other areas joining the network, so it means that Linkedin spreads to more sectors and already covers 150 industries around the world. With the expansion of LinkedIn to more language and geographical areas it might became truly international business communication platform.

According to the statistical data Linkedin demonstrated a faster growth that Twitter in the first half of 2010. LinkedIn sits in 56th place in the list of most visited websites with 1.7 billion monthly views. LinkedIn has over 75 million members in over 200 countries and each two weeks website adds more than 1 million new users. The figures are stunning, and it seems to be an amazing success, so I just was curious can it be better.

With this question in mind I decided to look at things from perspective of those leaders in today’s web, guess who came first :) exactly! Facebook, eternal competitor, maybe not direct yet, but very serious. I clearly realize that there is no reason to compare websites as they mostly serve for different purposes, again yet, as Facebook unequivocally shows his intentions to come on Linkedin territory, anyway most people still differentiate them from each other. So I found some interesting statistics with regards to them.

Not covering the user base, traffic and newcomers (for obvious reasons), nevertheless I found some areas, where the best business social networking website can do better! Here they are (comments below):

1.People spend half an hour on Facebook but only 5-7 minutes on Linkedin -

not sure if it can be comparable, but it seems that Linkedin, with it’s meaningful discussions, polls and business interactions should at least not to give up in time spent on website, but figures suggest otherwise.

2. According to opinions if you are looking for a job, Linkedin has a much more formal jobs database but, if jobs come through personal connections then Facebook may be your answer -

that’s honestly strange, isn’t LI is referred as a best recruiting-through-connection website?

3. Linkedin is 57% international while Facebook is 70% international

As I mentioned LI is on the right way to spread the world, however much work should be done, not only by site, but its members as well, Facebook and Google actively involve their members to help translate their websites, and it’s good!

4. Load time - Facebook 0.118 seconds, Linkedin 2.516 seconds

no comments

5. Annual Growth: Facebook + 159.60%; Linkedin +86.58%

Not bad for both, but LI has a bar to aspire to :)

What I found interesting is that the two websites features very close demographics (according to stats):

Facebook - 25-34 years old, Female
Parents, Some college

Linkedin 25-34 years old
Female, Parents, Master’s degree

So there is no way to say that Facebook deals with extremely proactive youngsters, while Linkedin serves busy-with-other things middle-aged people. During the last years I saw many business people joining Facebook, and on the other side many graduates took first steps in professional networking.

What I found, instead is that for both sites critical success factors are community, participation and trust. These are main foundations that make both Linkedin and Facebook what they are today - best business platform, and a life-style and most visited website over the web. That said, I truly believe that we, the Community can make our favorite virtual business venue even better! Having a solidary community, especially one where membership is unified with the common purpose (as my example is spread the word of Linkedin among friends, colleagues and other people) will be a huge bonus and main driver for further growth and perfection!!! Do you agree?

Join the discussion on Linkedin here