Long seen as the inferior cousin to Facebook for business-to-consumer marketing, professional networking site LinkedIn says advertisers are slowly coming around – albeit high-end ones.
Clifford Rosenberg, managing director for LinkedIn Australia, New Zealand and South-East Asia, told AdNews more and more brands were now using the platform as a consumer marketing platform.
"In the earlier days of LinkedIn, there was the belief that it was just for B2B marketing," he said. "Brands are coming to the realisation that professionals aren't just professionals. A great number of people who use it in a work context, they also have lives outside of work."
Perhaps not an earth-shattering insight, but LinkedIn has struggled in the past to break that perception and tap into the consumer dollar. A 2012 survey of 500 marketers from companies including Sony, GE, Bose and FedEx found the site languishing behind Facebook.
Sixty-seven percent of B2C marketers who generated leads from social media said some of those came from Facebook, while just 21% reported leads from LinkedIn. In the B2B stakes, LinkedIn was only just ahead of Facebook, 44% to 39%.
Rosenberg said LinkedIn was now seeing a good mix of B2B and high-end consumer brands. "We are determined to only place value in front of our members. As far as we're concerned, the content advertisers are putting on our platform is valuable for our members. It's targeted and useful, and so not seen as advertising."
Interestingly, nearly one third of visits to LinkedIn now come from mobile devices, and 66% of people visit the site from computers at home compared with 34% from work.
The company has pursued aggressive global expansion in recent years. While it posted revenue of $972 million in 2012, an year-on-year increase of 86%, its operating costs also doubled, resulting in net profits of just $21 million.
Rosenberg said Asia Pacific accounted for around 7% of global revenue – compared with 64% from the US – but would not give country-specific breakdowns. He said host of new products and services across recruitment, marketing and sales solutions had seen well over 1,000 companies come on board, including the likes of BHP and Rio Tinto.
Last month, LinkedIn celebrated its four millionth Australian user.
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