LinkedIn Passes 200 Million Members

LinkedIn announced today that the professional social network has passed 200 million members. It’s a tremendous milestone and the announcement went on to break down how that membership is comprised.

For instance, the site boasts 74 million members in the United Sates, and 11 million in the United Kingdom. Interestingly, India has actually surpassed the UK for second place at 18 million members.

LinkedIn is gaining approximately 2 new members every second, and a great many of those are coming from countries like Turkey, Brazil and even China.

From an industry perspective, Information Technology (IT) represents the largest segment at 4 million members, followed by Financial Services, Higher Education, Computer Software and Telecommunication.

LinkedIn has long been considered the ideal platform for presenting your professional background and engaging other professionals, but how does it compare to other social networks?

• Facebook: 1 Billion (Oct. 2012)
• Twitter: 500 Million (June 2012)
• Google+: 400 Million (Sept. 2012)
• MySpace: 250 Million (May, 2012)
• LinkedIn: 200 Million (Jan. 2013)
• Instagram: 100 Million (Nov. 2012)
• Foursquare: 25 Million (Sept. 2012)
• Pinterest: 11 Million (Nov. 2012)

Of course, these numbers represent accounts only, not necessarily active users. If you’re interested in the numbers of active users, we’ll need to look at how much activity each network receives on a month-to-month basis. MySpace, for instance, doesn’t receive nearly as much monthly activity as LinkedIn. Furthermore, from a business perspective, just because a network has more users doesn’t necessarily mean it’s the most appropriate platform for social media marketing. What’s interesting is that even though it’s just a couple years old, Google+ has doubled LinkedIn in users and continues to grow at a faster rate. This is one of the reasons why we generally recommend Google+ as the “Best” social network for businesses, despite LinkedIn’s focus on the professional.

It’s good to see that LinkedIn continues to grow, particularly outside the U.S. if your business has an international reach. Are you incorporating LinkedIn into your social media marketing strategy? What successes and challenges have you faced?