India Links to LinkedIn

With the registered user base crossing the 5 mn mark,
India is now the fastest growing region for LinkedIn.

As the worlds largest professional network with more than
60 mn members worldwide, LinkedIn has seen unprecedented growth in the Indian
market since establishing its office in India in December 2009.

The member growth in India has been strong over the last
three months with a growing number of members engaging through LinkedIn Groups
and LinkedIn Polls helping them to connect and collaborate across geographies.
As Hari V Krishnan, country manager, LinkedIn India rightly points out, "Our
focus for India is to increase the usage of products, applications and hiring
solutions thereby connecting all of Indias professionals to help them be more
successful and productive.

In your Pocket

With the focus on increasing awareness and user engagement, the focus of
LinkedIns mobile strategy is to make the platform available to users where they
work instead of logging on to the site.

LinkedIn recently announced the launch of the LinkedIn
application for BlackBerry smartphones at LinkedIn.com/blackberry and on
BlackBerry App World. The application complements LinkedIns other mobile
offerings for the iPhone and Palm Pre giving members more choices on how to use
LinkedIn away from their offices and computers.

"The new LinkedIn application features native integration
with the BlackBerry meaning the application has been embedded in the phone
itself, allowing members to access LinkedIn within their BlackBerry email,
calendar and contacts. For instance, the address book stores all relevant
LinkedIn information (current title, small picture, etc) of the addressee
resulting in better preparation for any meeting by accessing the LinkedIn
profile of participants," adds Krishnan.

Some of the key functions of the new application include
enabling users to manage their LinkedIn inboxes on-the-go; staying connected to
the professional conversation; adding new connections away from the computer;
sending invites to new connections to build networks; and lastly, receiving
recommendations of who they may want to add to their professional networks.

The application is available globally in English, Spanish,
French, German, Japanese, and Chinese languages.

In addition, the BlackBerry application has also been integrated with MS
Outlook and IBM Lotus Notes (the two most popular mail clients) so that users
using these mail clients can get relevant LinkedIn information.

Going Local

"Our localization strategy is two-fold: showcase local relevance and Indian
success stories, and secondly show LinkedIn as a platform wherein members use it
as a professional productivity tool and a repository for professional opinion,"
says Krishnan.

While the primary source of revenue for LinkedIn India remains advertisements
placed in the site; LinkedIn as a platform for offering hiring solutions to
recruiters and prospective recruits is fast gaining prominence among users.

LinkedIn India has also entered a partnership with the Network 18 Group (CNBC
TV 18) and is jointly conducting polls on various current topics. In addition to
this, LinkedIns open API platform has enabled developers from India and across
the world to custom build integrations with LinkedIn.com to provide members an
engaged professional networking experience. The companys integration with
Twitter has also provided further impetus in driving member engagement.

Krishnan however discounts any plans to go regional saying, "No tangible
input devices like keyboards exist in regional languages, besides the
professional language of choice is English in India and also elsewhere in the
world.

Stuti Das

stutid@cybermedia.co.in