Amid the increasingly crowded social network landscape, few platforms enjoy as clearly defined a role -- or as robust a user base -- as professional networking site LinkedIn. And with an estimated $80 million in funding still in the bank, the already-profitable company is in a unique position to maintain its leadership position well into the future, says CEO, co-founder, and chairman Reid Hoffman.
There's good reason to put some stock in Hoffman's assertions. After all, LinkedIn isn't his first online rodeo. Far from it, in fact. Prior to LinkedIn, he was executive vice president of PayPal, where he was actively involved in orchestrating the company's acquisition by eBay. Over the years, Hoffman has helped finance more than 60 companies, many from initial conception. His list of angel investments includes a host of well-recognized online properties, including Facebook, Digg, Technorati, Funny or Die, and Flickr.
Reid Hoffman is the founder of LinkedIn.In this exclusive interview with iMedia Connection, Hoffman details the marketing and professional development opportunities available via LinkedIn's expanding platform. He also provides insights on the competitive social media landscape, as well as what he sees as being the next hot online technology sector.
iMedia: LinkedIn entered the ad network fray last September with the debut of the LinkedIn Audience Network. What kind of results have advertisers on the network seen thus far? And how are you distinguishing this service in the crowded ad network space?
Reid Hoffman: We're really looking to improve the overall ad network landscape -- particularly for B2B marketers who have been largely underserved in this space -- by allowing marketers to target campaigns to specific audiences. I can't share any specific results, but I can tell you that a lot of advertisers find our unique approach compelling.
The LinkedIn Audience Network allows marketers to target specific audience segments based on the highly accurate data that our more than 39 million members share publicly in their LinkedIn profiles -- such as job function, company size, and seniority -- and to do that at scale across the web. So, let's say a B2B marketer wanted to reach small businesses, IT managers, or corporate executives -- we can deliver their ads specifically to those segments across a large network of quality websites.
iMedia: Where's the biggest opportunity for brand marketers on LinkedIn?
Hoffman: The biggest opportunity for brand marketers is to provide value to an audience of influential, ambitious, and affluent professionals who are focused on being successful in their careers -- help them be successful or help them enjoy success, and you'll have some loyal customers for a long time.
We're still very big believers in the value of display advertising when done right -- which not only requires great creative execution by the client, but also requires the publisher to provide the right canvas. We're able to deliver ads to specific segments based on the profile data LinkedIn members share. By limiting the number of ads on our pages, our members actually tend to interact with them as part of the LinkedIn interface.
iMedia: How can marketers go beyond display advertising campaigns on LinkedIn?
Hoffman: One way would be LinkedIn Polls, where marketers can deliver a co-branded poll to specific segments of the LinkedIn audience, and then examine the responses by job title, industry, company size, etc. We're taking this approach to another level with our partnership with CNBC, where members will take the poll online at LinkedIn and then CNBC's on-air talent will discuss the results live.
Another offering, which we're currently piloting with a few partners, is a whitepaper distribution program, where we'll help marketers distribute their content and generate leads on the LinkedIn platform. We're also seeing some smart use of "organic" LinkedIn assets as part of advertising campaigns. For example, Microsoft recently ran a campaign for its BizSpark server that features an employee in the ad itself. In one of the executions, there was a link to that employee's LinkedIn profile, where a customer could then learn more about the employee, see how they were connected to him, see who recommended his work and his professional experience, etc.
The last item that I'll mention in our innovations in advertising is the approach of stoking conversations on LinkedIn. There are some significant ways to engage in both of these areas, whether it's working with us to create and promote a "Featured Question" or by sponsoring federations of groups that are thematically similar.
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