1. Queen’s School of Business
Global Strategy
Prof. Douglas Reid
Strategy Profile of LinkedIn
Muneet Bhatia
Queen’s MBA 2012

2. About LinkedIn
LinkedIn is an Internet platform with a goal toconnectstudents, business professionals and cor-
porates around the world. The business started in 2003 and is currently a global network with over 150
million members, the largest online business network worldwide. The top decision makers of all For-
tune 500 companies are represented in LinkedIn. The company has a diversified business with revenue
from the areas of premium subscription, marketing solutions and hiring solutions. The headquarters of
LinkedIn is located in Mountain View, California (LinkedIn Press 2011).
Strategy
LinkedIn has created a niche for itself in the professional world over the last few years. It has
differentiated itself from other social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter wherein it fo-
cuses on professionals with specific business purpose in mind rather than just social networking. It
employs a “freemium” business model wherein it spent its initial years (between 2003 and 2005) to
build up the user network by offering free services andonce a considerable base was built, it launched
its premium services – LinkedIn Jobs and Paid Subscription to start making revenues. LinkedIn‟s free
services, in a sense act as a base for its premium services. Fostering viral member growth and creating
a professional record of all its members is critical to the success of its premium services.
Wanting to be seen as the hub for professional conversation, LinkedIn expanded made strategic
partnerships with Twitter, CNBC, Business Week and New York Times. LinkedIn is also continu-
ously innovating itself through acquisitions for enhancing its services and addition of new features to
its repertoire.
Willingness to Pay
Monetized Solution – Premium Subscription
LinkedIn provides active job seekers with premium subscription an edge over the free users
through features such as “Inmail”, “Profile Organizer”, and “Premium Search Filters” to effectively
connect, organize and search for jobs. Through premium features such as “3 rd Degree Name Visibil-
ity” and “LinkedIn for Salesforce”, the service becomes indispensable for suppliers, buyers and
small/medium sized businesses to make use of the arbitrage opportunities available globally. For ex-
ample, a supplier in China could use LinkedIn premium service to find a customer in Brazil who
1

3. wouldn‟t be visible to him in LinkedIn otherwise. Also, with the increasing adoption among Fortune
500 members, the premium subscription service has become a status symbol to possess for the higher
executives. Thus, without subscribing to premium services, members cannot take full advantage of
LinkedIn‟s powerful features for getting a job or propagating their business quickly and efficiently.
Monetized Solution - Hiring Solution
LinkedIn increases its monetization while providing members (free and premium) with better
tools to manage professional relationships. The hiring solutions help corporate partnersto work more
efficiently and effectively to identify active and passive job seekers. Currently, LinkedIn‟s hiring solu-
tions has become the primary tool for hiring companies to reach out to passive job seekers. The
LinkedIn profile maintained by user acts as an “ever” updated resume for the hiring companies to
reach out to qualified candidates who are otherwise not seeking a career change.LinkedIn‟s “referral
engine” enables the enterprises and professional organizations to leverage the current employee net-
work to find qualified candidates who can be “vetted” by the employees themselves. The solutioncan
also be used by head hunting companies to target candidates and recommend them to clients thereby
justifying the cost of using this premium service.LinkedIn could soon overtake other job search en-
gines and become a one-stop place for hiring professionals.
Cost
For LinkedIn, the cost of adding an additional member to its network is marginal. This could
easily be covered by either converting a fraction of its existing free users to premium or by selling
hiring/marketing solutions to corporates. Also, the network effect in LinkedIn is huge. LinkedIn does
not have to spend lots in marketing expenses. Most of the corporates/professionals join through word-
of-mouth or due to the fact that their allies/competitors are already in LinkedIn.
From the cost reduction perspective, LinkedIn has employed several strategies:
LinkedIn has taken advantage of the AAA framework – Adaptation, Aggregation and Arbi-
trage for global integration. By establishing local sales offices, it has adapted to the coun-
try/region of existence to try and overcome the Cultural, Administrative, Geographic, and
Economic distances from its US base.
2

4. It has established sales offices in many of its operating countries in order to be closer to the
corporate customers instead of flying out the sales/marketing people from its US base.
Through the sales offices, LinkedIn takes advantage of the local employees‟ profes-
sional/corporate network to build their own network, overcome language differences and take
advantage of the labour arbitrage existing in that country. They could also compete with the
local competitors in the market with a perception of being a local and a global player.
LinkedIn has started to move certain knowledge intensive work such as R&D to country like
India in order to take advantage of the knowledge capital as well as labour arbitrage.
LinkedIn has adopted an aggregation strategy by opening a Brazil (with membership of 6 mil-
lion) office which serves as the regional headquarters for all Latin America (with membership
of 14 million) instead of opening offices in individual Latin American countries.
Industry analysis
Competition
In talent acquisition market, it has revolutionized the talent sourcing activities for both SMEs
and large corporates through its global database of professionals. Its competitors, mainly job portals,
have struggled to maintain their relevance in the changing business environment and talent needs by
both the international and local enterprises. E.g. Monster, a well-known job portal, provides database
of potential candidates to the enterprises at the regional level. On the other hand, users of LinkedIn
have access to its entire global database once they take the membership. LinkedIn is taking a leader-
ship position in the hiring industry as its competitors have failed to meet the industry requirements-
ability to engage and attract inactive job seekers for the long term relationships.
Another source of competitive advantage for LinkedIn comes from the fact that it is a social
platform where members can view each other‟s profiles and connect with each other through common
professional interests. This not only provides an opportunity to both the potential employees and em-
ployers to build their professional brand on the web, but also provides them an interactive platform.
Organizations are finding it much more relevant to engage potential candidates through LinkedIn and
then hire the most appropriate talent. Professionals are able to learn much more about the potential
3

5. opportunities around the globe; position themselves for any future career move and build professional
network.
LinkedIn has differentiated itself from competitors through unique product and service offerings
at attractive prices. This strategy has driven customers from Monster and CareerBuilder towards
LinkedIn while increasing customer value (reduction in hiring cost, faster hiring cycles, higher quality
of candidates, access to passive candidates, access to global talent etc.). Due to this value creation,
corporates have chosen to shift to LinkedIn from Monster and CareerBuilder despite high switching
costs.
Buyer power
Corporates and SMEs have no other alternatives but to use LinkedIn for their local and global
talent needs. LinkedIn has been proved to be the most effective tool for them in the long term. These
buyers are not price sensitive as LinkedIn has helped them in driving the hiring cost down signifi-
cantly as compared to their traditional hiring methods. At the same time, LinkedIn has helped its cli-
ents in meeting their talent needs much faster which in turn has impacted their business operations and
hence their bottom line positively. They don‟t tend to negotiate on the quality of services as LinkedIn
has provided them a unique platform through which they have been able to attract and hire high qual-
ity talent. LinkedIn enjoys almost monopoly power in professional networking space which provides it
further control over the customers.
Since there are very large number of buyers across the globe, LinkedIn commands more author-
ity on the buying decisions too. LinkedIn has been able to enjoy the advocacy by its current customers
as senior talent acquisition executives of the corporates attend conferences arranged by LinkedIn and
encourage attendees to start using LinkedIn‟s solutions. Since LinkedIn is directly selling its services
to the customers, there is no dependency on the external distribution channels which further strength-
ens its bargaining power.
4

6. Supplier Power
In this case, the suppliers are the professionals themselves as they are creating the global net-
work which LinkedIn is leveraging in its business. There are 150 million professionals on the
LinkedIn network as of Feb 2012 and this number is growing at 4 million per month. While it might
seem that LinkedIn has a high dependency on this network, it was more so in its initial years. Now
that the critical mass has been attained, this dependency doesn‟t exist anymore. Professionals have
realized that it is in their own interest to build and grow their network on LinkedIn. This long term
career interest of the professionals is driving the growth of the network at such a rapid pace. Employ-
ees in multinational companies are connecting on LinkedIn with their colleagues in the other parts of
the world as it is increasingly considered to be the de-facto platform to maintain professional relation-
ships.
Since professionals are spending significant amount of time and efforts to build their network
and personal brand on LinkedIn, it would be extremely expensive for them to switch to another pro-
fessional network in the future. This factor enhances the dependency of the professionals on LinkedIn
in the long term and provides substantial competitive advantage to LinkedIn over its competitors.
New Entrants
There is a very high barrier to the entry right now in to the professional networking space which
is steering LinkedIn‟s growth. On the supply side, the LinkedIn‟s professional network is growing
across the globe (Exhibit 6). This growth was primarily in North America in the initial years but has
spread in other continents rapidly, especially in the emerging markets, since then. It took LinkedIn
years to build this network and it will take years for the new players too. LinkedIn is also enjoying the
scale of economies now since its fixed costs (R&D, corporate expenses, administration, IT infrastruc-
ture etc.) are spread across the continents now.
On the demand side, LinkedIn has already proved itself as a trusted partner to its customers. By
doing so, it has achieved the scale at the global level and is commanding the price. On the other hand,
LinkedIn has to quickly ramp up its sales and marketing efforts across the countries and continents.
This would allow it to leverage its network and the credibility that it has established (Exhibit 6). We
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7. discussed the switching costs from both the corporates‟ and professionals‟ perspective earlier. That
barrier applies for the new entrants too.
Capital requirement is not a deterrent in this case as internet start-ups can be started with very
little capital in hand. Internet is a growing area in the developing markets and it attracts investment
from venture capitalists and financial institutions too. There are incubators in both developed and
emerging markets which are encouraging entrepreneurs to venture in to new businesses.
LinkedIn also has a first mover advantage in the professional networking industry. They have
not only built high quality engineering and research teams but also have been able to expand its pres-
ence in a number of countries in the last 3 years. This head start has allowed them to build brand and
close relationships with both the corporates and the professionals at the regional level. LinkedIn has
demonstrated its benefits to the customers by reducing their cost of operations and creating value for
them as explained earlier (faster hiring cycles, higher quality of candidates, access to passive candi-
dates, access to global talent etc.).
The above explained factors have created a significant barrier to entry for the new entrants in
professional networking space.
Substitutes
Disruptive technologies have revolutionized the ways businesses are run over the last decade.
With the rapid advances in internet and mobile technologies, no industry and business model can sus-
tain without being aware of the changes and constantly evolving itself. However, LinkedIn has been
able to replace job boards like Monster, CareerBuilder etc. and has redefined the role played by the
traditional head hunting and executive search firms over years.
Coming out of the recession, organizations have been looking for innovative ways to ramp up
their teams. Moreover, organizations have become more quality and skills conscious. In this environ-
ment, LinkedIn has to be ahead of its competitors through innovation.
A large population on LinkedIn, especially from emerging markets, is building profiles on the
website but has not been able to serve the purpose –build a professional brand for themselves and be-
6

8. come a potential future hire for the corporate partners of LinkedIn. It is because of this reason that
corporate partners in those regions might find it difficult to extract the value they are expecting from
LinkedIn. Further, niche industries and skills would always find its ways through the traditional hiring
channels. LinkedIn should carefully analyze its offerings and make sure that it doesn‟t become a mere
tool for the recruiters and head hunting firms and rather maintain its professional networking essence.
However, in the short to mid- term, LinkedIn has low threat of being substituted by another
product or service.
Value Chain Analysis
In an internet corporation, information becomes the main medium through which business proc-
esses flow. The greater the amount and the value of information that flows through the value chain, the
greater the firm‟s value proposition will grow and therefore the consumer‟s willingness to pay will
increase. For these kinds of businesses, the concept of Virtual Value Chain was introduced in 1995 by
Rayport and Sviokla, which consisted of „„gathering, organizing, selecting, synthesizing, and distribut-
ing of information” (Rayport, Sviokla, 1995). However for a firm whose business relies on social me-
dia, we can even talk of Value Chain 2.0 which puts the consumer in the heart of this new model.
Indeed, Michael Porter‟s vision of a company‟s value proposition was more oriented to manu-
facturing firms. Therefore, a new vision was developed in order to be able to analyse these new firms
with a significantly different business model. Social Media enables the consumer as an actor of the
firm‟s development and he or she becomes part of the company‟s value chain. A new term which
could be used to describe this new type of consumer is “ConsumActor” (Comtesse X.,Huang J., 2008).
In order to analyse LinkedIn‟s value chain, we chose to transpose activities from Michael Por-
ter‟s value chain to adapt them to the social media industry as described in Xavier Comtesse and Jef-
frey Huan‟s article published in 2008 (Exhibit2).
LinkedIn‟s primary activities in their value chain are the following:
Open Inbound Logistics (Inbound Logistics)
In LinkedIn‟s case, the raw materials are the different members of its website. LinkedIn mem-
bers are as described in the overview of the company, professionals or students looking to increase
7

9. their network in order to enhance their opportunities.The more the quantity and the quality of the
members they attract, the more they will possess relevant data and information which will become the
core of their business model in order to develop their three offers: premium subscriptions, marketing
solutions and hiring solutions.
Co-operations (Operations)
In a social media company, the ConsumActor is responsible for creating value by networking
with other professionals. In economics, this effect is called a network effect or network externality
(demand-side economies of scale). As we have mentioned above,the ConsumActor will generate rele-
vant data and information which will give value to the firm‟s offers. In general, social media is a busi-
ness where the ConsumActor will drive the value of the firm, as shown in Exhibit4.
Outbound Logistics by Customers (Outbound Logistics)
Regarding how its service is distributed,LinkedIn does not managethis part of the value chain
directly. In fact it is not part of its core business to deliver the package which contains their service.
This activity is being handled by complementary industriessuch as computer manufacturers or phone,
tablet manufacturers and service providers for mobile use of the service. Moreover these stakeholders
might offer complementary services to consumers and add value to LinkedIn‟s services. What they
provide to these stakeholders is the technical platform that members and other customers use in order
to enjoy their services.
Viral (Marketing and Sales)
LinkedIn hired an external firm to work on sharpening its positioning, expanding marketplace
and public perception of the site. However, we cannot consider that this activity is outsourced as it was
more a consulting work.LinkedIn has own marketing offices in its main markets: Australia, Brazil,
Canada, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Singapore, Sweden and the United
Kingdom etc (LinkedIn Form 10-K, 2012).
LinkedIn does not focus only on subscriptions in order to earn revenue. Premium subscriptions
accounted for only 20% of their yearly revenue in 2011. The other activities that create their revenue
are the sale of their hiring solution (50%) and their marketing solution (30%) – Exhibit6.
8

10. Even though most of their revenue is not made on subscriptions, the key of their business
model is to attract consumers, not necessarily premium subscribers. Indeed enhancing their customer
base will make their hiring and marketing solutions more valuable to potentials clients.
Communities of Practice (Services)
For LinkedIn, this activity is critical to developing their member base. As a result of poor ser-
vice, they could indeed decide not to be active on their platform and that would damage the viral effect
for enhancing their value.
LinkedIn also adds value through its support activities which can be described as follows.
Multi-stakeholders infrastructure (Firm infrastructure)
LinkedIn Corporation performs such activities as finance, accounting, auditing, general man-
agement, strategic planning mainly by itself (seldom it uses outside consulting and accounting ser-
vices). Although there are functions, which the company prefers to outsource. For instance, the com-
pany hired Atomic PR to provide public relations services – it should help to improve public percep-
tion of the site. Also, LinkedIn outsources legal services – law firm Cooley LLP helps with protection,
maintenance, enforcement of its marks. Moreover Cooley helped LinkedIn to go public in 2011
(CrunchBase, 2012). All mentioned services are outsourced in the USA, because the location of head-
quarters.
LinkedIn web-site is a good example of multi-stakeholder environment. By means of REST ap-
plication programming interface (API) it lets companies to organize their own professional networks,
own web sites inside LinkedIn infrastructure (LinkedIn, 2012).
Customer network management (Human resource management)
LinkedIn Corporation recruits employees using its own recruitment team. The majority of
LinkedIn‟s recruiting efforts take place on LinkedIn.com. Also the company head-hunts some persons
for crucial positions from big, international technological and consulting companies such as Google,
Yahoo, Booz & Company etc. Main HR departments are situated at headquarters of the company in
the USA and at international headquarters in Dublin (Ireland) (LinkedIn Form 10-K, 2012).
Co-Creation development (Technology development)
9

11. LinkedIn Corporation provides opportunities to customers of LinkedIn and even to people all
over the world to create new and develop existing features of its social network. The company main-
tains a LinkedIn Engineering Blog and LinkedIn Labs. The goal of the blog is to share the latest tech-
nological developments at LinkedIn, discuss them and update. LinkedIn Labs hosts a small set of pro-
jects and experimental features built by the employees of LinkedIn (LinkedIn, 2012). It solicits feed-
back from people in order to improve these projects. These are bright examples of co-creation devel-
opment.
Design of LinkedIn is developed by internal specialists as design is considered to be one of the
main factors of success in e-business.
LinkedIn‟s team works on anddevelops special systems, which facilitates processes for flow
and storage of information: information retrieval systems, the social graph system and supporting data
infrastructure.
Open procurement (Procurement)
Procurement activities of LinkedIn mainly principally include purchasing of different com-
puter equipment, especially data centres. All data servers, which are purchased by LinkedIn, are pro-
duced by Oracle Corporation – the world leader in database management systems (LinkedIn, 2012).
Material data centre facilities are provided by Equinix Operating Co., Inc. pursuant to a master
service agreement with Equinix dated February 2008. Under this agreement, Equinix provides
LinkedIn with data centre space in Silicon Valley and Chicago (LinkedIn Form 10-K, 2012). There are
several reasons for that decision. First of all, organizing such facilities is quite expensive and instead
LinkedIn decided to focus on its primary activities. Secondly, headquarters of LinkedIn are situated in
Silicon Valley and it is quite convenient and safe for company to have servers close to it. Also,Equinix
has brand new, fully-equipped facilities in mentioned areas what guarantees high level of rendered
services. All new innovations will be rapidly implemented at these data centre facilities as they are
situated in the high-tech innovation and development area.
If we look at LinkedIn‟s raw materials as each of its members, we can see that he or she will
then add relevant information in his or her profile and by linking with other members, enabling the
other activities of the value chain to increase their value. The more this viral effect will occur the more
10

12. LinkedIn‟s hiring and marketing solutions will become valuable, therefore driving the customers‟ will-
ingness to pay up.The value chain for LinkedIn is presented in the Exhibit 3.
Motivation for Globalization
LinkedIn‟s core of business is linking professionals around the globe. This approach is twofold
as on the one hand individuals can get in contact (e.g. through groups) with other likeminded people in
order to conduct business, collaborate or share ideas; on the other hand, LinkedIn is actively used by
individuals to find future employers and vice versa employers which are on the lookout for new em-
ployees use LinkedIn as a tool to facilitate their search. This can reduce recruiting costs dramatically
and therefore LinkedIn is more and more integrated in the recruitment process (LinkedIn Press 2011).
ADDING Value Framework - Growth
It is obvious that LinkedIn internationalizes as the company‟s platform can be universally em-
ployed in any country in order to connect professionals with managers and companies. Regarding the
ADDING Value framework, therefore, the main driver of internationalisation is growth (Ghemawat
2007).As LinkedIn is truly an online-company, new markets can easily be penetrated as basically only
the homepage needs to be translated into various languages and a specific country‟s domain to be reg-
istered.
ADDING Value Framework - Increasing Willingness-to-pay
LinkedIn‟s main income is generated through advertising of companies, HR solutions, and pre-
mium members (Exhibit6). Therefore, offices in active countries have to be installed (Greenfield) as
awareness has to be created in order to sell products (ads, HR solutions). “Capturing revenues from
HR Solutions and advertising requires a massive sales team in close proximity to the client” (Woir-
haye 2011). In order to be successful and increase revenue the brand LinkedIn has to be strengthened
so that the willingness-to-pay can be raised from both individuals and companies (as advertisers and
mostly HR tool users).In going international, LinkedIn is getting more popular (brand awareness), as
more people know about it and in the best case then use it.
Location
As it is clear by now that LinkedIn relies on actives members, preferably premium ones, and
companies which use LinkedIn mainly as an HR tool, the company aims in its internationalization
11

13. endeavour to enter large and growing economies. The more people and companies LinkedIn use the
more powerful the network gets; this is also known as the network effect (Marketing Terms n.d.).
Therefore, not only major economies like North America, Europe or Japan are important but also fast
growing industries, especially the BRICs As business is growing fast, many new connections are being
made from which LinkedIn can profit. Also, there is a need for companies to establish their brand in
these emerging markets. With LinkedIn they can target advertising campaigns at professionals or can
use the platform to identify top talenteasier and faster particularly in emerging countries (Kak-
kar2011).
Entry Mode
LinkedIn enters countries through a Greenfield strategy (LinkedIn Press 2011). As previously
stated, LinkedIn needs proximity to (business) customers in order to sell professional products like HR
tools. Therefore a sales team needs to be installed to create awareness in new entered countries in or-
der to being able to serve clients, i.e. to sell ad-packages and HR tools (Woirhaye 2011).
Critique
Profitability
One of the primary criticisms of LinkedIn‟s strategy over the years was its lack in focus of prof-
itability. It spent its initial years after inception to gather the critical mass of quality business profes-
sionals which is the current selling point. Hence, from our perspective it is a sound strategy which the
company had adopted. Looking at the net revenues for the past 3 years (Exhibit 6), it is clear that the
revenues are increasing at the rate of 100% year over year.
Local (US) Focus
LinkedIn has also been criticized for being too locally focussed on its US operations. However,
with the establishment of International offices in Amsterdam, Bangalore, Delhi, Dublin, London, Mel-
bourne, Milan, Mumbai, Munich, Paris, Sao Paulo, Singapore, Stockholm, Sydney, Tokyo and To-
ronto as well as an R&D centre in Bangalore, India LinkedIn has started to diversify its global pres-
ence. Also, the revenues from international operations (Exhibit 6) are increasing at the rate of over
12

14. 100% year over year with percentage contribution at 32% for 2011. The revenues from international
operations are set to increase with the opening of more and more global offices wherein LinkedIn‟s
sales staffs strive to be near the customers to effectively market their products/services and support
them.
Internationalization
LinkedIn has taken advantage of the AAA framework – Adaptation, Aggregation and Arbi-
trage for global integration. By establishing local sales offices, it has adapted to the country/region of
existence to try and overcome the Cultural, Administrative, Geographic, and Economic distances from
its US base. By establishing regional office in Brazil (Sao Paulo), it has consolidated its operations for
entire Latin America taking advantage of the cultural/language similarities. It has also taken advantage
of the labor arbitrage and knowledge capital existing in a country like India by setting up an R&D
centre along with sales office.
Generic Pricing
LinkedIn employs a generic pricing strategy in all countries wherein it charges a flat rate
equivalent to its US dollar pricing. This could deter potential subscribers based on the purchasing
power parity of the local economy. This is especially true for consumers in the developing world.
LinkedIn‟s rationale could be that the target customer segments in the economy could afford the cur-
rent pricing system. LinkedIn could gain more customer base and improve its revenues by localizing
the pricing strategy pertaining to the country it is operating in.
Awareness Creation
LinkedIn relies on word-of-mouth advertising for its solutions. Awareness is not created among
certain lesser technology savvy industries such as manufacturing. If we look at the Industry segrega-
tion (Exhibit 7), we can see the effects. However, the growing popularity of Information Technology
makes its application in the manufacturing sector indispensable. Thus, creating awareness initially
among the higher and mid-management executives and then propagating to the lower tier employees
could present a significant business opportunity especially in the marketing and subscription solutions
segment of LinkedIn.
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15. Targeting Premium Subscription Market
LinkedIn is not aggressively targeting the premium subscription segment. It is currently focus-
sing more on the hiring and marketing solutions. With the subscription rate of 0.8% (1.2 million ap-
proximately– Exhibit 8), it is far behind its competitors such as “Xing” and “Viadeo” who have con-
verted up to 20% and 10% of their users respectively into premium subscribers (Woirhaye 2011 and
Iko-systems 2011). There is a huge business potential in this segment especially from the
small/medium enterprises who are trying to expand their global reach. Hence, LinkedIn needs to im-
prove its marketing strategy to capture this segment more effectively.
14

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ences Still Matter 1st ed., Harvard Business School Press.
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ii

17. Exhibits
1
LinkedIn Ads - Targeting
2
iii

18. 3
MULTI-STAKEHOLDERS INFRASTRUCTURE
Recruiting technical, administrative person- Recruiting techni- Recruiting marketing and sales, technical,
Customer nel cal staff administrative employees
network
management Providing training and development programs: Employee assistance programme, Professional development and
Management development program
M
Supporting Supporting informa- Marketing re-
Co-creation JavaScript tion retrieval sys- search, sales and Service support
Web design tems, social graph marketing sup-
A
development and REST
APIs system, data infra- port
structure
R
Open pro- Different computer equipment, flow of information G
curement
LinkedIn members : Members add in- Platforms in order Members build Service is critical to I
formation on their to use LinkedIn: their network and the quality of inte-
- Students profile which computers, mo- the solution be- raction between
- Professionals
N
creates valuable biles, tablets. comes more and members which is
data. more attractive. the core of Linke-
dIn‟s business.
Open in- Co-operations Outbound Viral (Market- Communities of
bound logis- logistics by ing&Sales) practice
tics customers ii

19. 4
Value creation in social media –source :http://www.britopian.com/
5
Revenue by Product Line (in thousands of dollars) – source : LinkedIn Financial Report, From 10-K
$300,000
$250,000
$200,000
2009
$150,000
2010
$100,000 2011
$50,000
$0
Hiring Solutions Marketing Premium
Solutions Subscriptions
ii

20. 6
Revenue distribution (in thousands of dollars) – source : LinkedIn Financial Report, From 10-K
iii

21. 7
iv

22. 8
http://www.businessinsider.com/why-linkedin-does-not-generate-revenues-from-its-monster-userbase-
2011-6?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign =Feed%3A+ businessin-
sider+%28Business+Insider%29, accessed 14. March 2012
v