LinkedIn Statistics – And Ties To The Credit Crunch

The Guardian is reporting that those within the financial industry are increasingly LinkedIn.

It seems anti-climactic to think that investment bankers are joining, updating their profiles, and connecting more right now than ever before – but I’m a bit more interested to look inside and see that LinkedIn can identify this activity.

Let’s see what they’re seeing;-)

Check out The Guardian’s report for yourself

I’m often skeptical of reports, and I’d like you to take a peek at the article yourself.

And here’s the link to The Guardian’s article “The credit crunch is feeding LinkedIn”.

Open that up, have a look, and come back here.

[Update – I found a similar article over on VentureBeat]

The numbers

Double the users identifying themselves as being in the investment banking industry over 7 weeks.

Half of those users working on their profiles in the last 2 weeks.

Recommendations, invitations and connections up 10-21% in the last 2 weeks.

That’s impressive.  (Well, except for the second figure – if you double the number of users, the number of completely new profiles will double meaning that half of them will have been worked on;-)

Underrepresented group

So – some industries are not well represented, it could be that investment bankers never thought they “needed” LinkedIn and are suddenly trying to make up for lost time. (I’ll note here that I maintain it is better to build your network when you don’t need it;-)

My view of LinkedIn membership is that in this past year it has grown in some traditionally non-technical areas – and that these new users are the ones in need of help.

Interesting to see these numbers

And while the numbers are interesting to see, I’m also eager to learn that LinkedIn is able to come up with these numbers.  That says something about the system.

If you had a focused message, how would you like to target a banner ad to LinkedIn users that updated their profile in the last 30 days, mention working for one of several different companies, and have experience with a few key industry standards?

It looks to me like LinkedIn can target that audience for you…

Never stop networking

So here’s my appeal to those new users from the investment banking industry that are looking to land a job with LinkedIn – don’t stop after you’ve landed.  Really.

Read more on your lifelong need to network in this earlier article.

Please recommend this web site

And here’s a winning proposition.  If you know individuals who are looking to use LinkedIn more effectively, please turn them on to this web site.

They can benefit from all of the articles I’ve written (see the links off to the right – yup – they’re all there sorted by category), grab the free tip sheet for some quick pointers, and join the group to try out that aspect of the system.

If some of my readers order the book, that’s great, the rest of the material is free for everyone.

They get help, you become the hero that turned them on to this site, and I get a new reader – looks good for everyone;-)

To your continued success – and using LinkedIn to help you achieve it,

steve