LinkedIn users have high incomes

27th November 2008 | Published in Industry News and Developments

The majority of users of the corporate social networking site LinkedIn have high personal incomes, a new survey reveals.

According to poll of the site’s members by LinkedIn, Anderson Analytics and software firm SPSS, almost 60 per cent of LinkedIn users are well-to-do and hold executive or consultant positions.

The survey also found that those who are decision-makers in their jobs are far more likely to be active networkers.

Those with personal annual incomes of between $200k (£122k) and $350k are seven times more likely to have more than 150 LinkedIn connections than those with lower salaries.

Executives who earn on average $104k constitute about 28 per cent of LinkedIn users, while consultants who have an average salary of $93k make up 30 per cent of users.

The survey also identified four types of LinkedIn users - “savvy networkers” (early adopters who are active in other networks), “senior executives”, “late adopters” and those “exploring options” who frequent job-seeking boards.

“This survey shows that online social networks are not only a way for professional groups to stay connected, but powerful tools for business as well,” said Tom H C Anderson, founder of Anderson Analytics.


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Comments

  1. Gravatar
    Ian Hendry said on November 28th, 2008 at 10:12 am

    Interesting facts, but advertising on social networks is still to prove itself, so what can anyone do with this information. Ad rates are much lower on Facebook and LinkedIn because their is increasing evidence that people don’t notice them: on Facebook people are there to communicate with friends and take exception to be sold to, yet LinkedIn is seen as a tool for business so they have been easy on the ads in order to not overwhelm users and appear unprofessional.

    Arguabley, no-one is mastering advertising on social media so the profile of their member base is not something that anyone can easily exploit.

    Ian Hendry
    CEO, WeCanDo.BIZ
    http://www.wecando.biz

  2. Gravatar
    ScottB said on November 28th, 2008 at 10:16 am

    I think we’re only seeing the tip of the iceberg in terms of what is possible with social media site advertising. There’s so much potential there to bring in traditional marketing concepts to improve the service for marketers. I think the main failing right now is that social media sites are implementing across-the-board default ads and that really isn’t working out for them.

    I handle the SEO for a large traffic site (not as much as the social media kings, but still 1.4+ million visitors per month) and generic advertising simply isn’t a good revenue model for these types of sites and I would expect any large traffic site expecting to become a viable business primarily through banner ad / adsense revenue is seriously mistaken.

    Scott

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