LinkedIn Outlook on where it will be In the Future

Prepared for
Shari Weiss of BUS 300

Prepared by
Erik Baldewein

June 29, 2015

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations

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Executive Summary

iv

Introduction

Findings

Plans on reaching a larger demographic

Focus on expanding throughout the world

Creating a website that keeps users coming back

Diversifying its operations into markets outside of LinkedIn

6
7

Conclusion and Recommendations

References

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List of Illustrations

1 The State of LinkedIn

2 Consumer Brand Topics of Interest

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Executive Summary

The following business report is stating the current and future expectations for LinkedIn. The
report will be highlighting how the company LinkedIn has changed the way social media works.
There are many key points that are addressed in the report on to how LinkedIn has gone about in
business as well as what it expects to do in the following years. The highlight to the true
potential of LinkedIn is that it is an online company with the ability to quickly expand to new
markets. The fact that the company does not need a true physical presences allows LinkedIn to
reach many markets in new countries without much overhead cost. The fact that so many
business have failed because it is hard for them to expand is the exact reason that LinkedIn can
succeed because it has such a strong capability to spread its product to the world market so
quickly.

The information for this report was obtained mostly from the internet. Information has also been
gained from working with the groups in class and discussing what LinkedIn is and how it planes
to expand.

There are many key aspects to why and how LinkedIn is attempting to expand in business.

LinkedIn is a company on the internet which allows it to open up in new markets with
almost no physical presence needed.
LinkedIn grows largely from what the users contribute to the company
The growth of the company can be increased by LinkedIn showing commitment to
expand to new markets.
Tapping into users can create new users because the new users will want to connect with
the existing users.
The large the pool of people who are on LinkedIn has a huge effect on new members
joining.
People that notice there are large amounts of people on LinkedIn are also likely to join to
gain access to the pool of information

On the basis of this report it is recommended that LinkedIn maintain its goal of explaining to
new markets. LinkedIn can expect to see new users from all age groups because of the exciting
members that are on the site that people want to get in contact with. LinkedIn should also focus
on expanding into new markets because it has the ability to quickly enter a new country.
LinkedIn can also increase its success by improving the popularity of the website in the world
and causing more people to sign up for LinkedIn.

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INTRODUCTION: LINKEDIN FUTRUE BUISSNES PLANS

LinkedIn is a company that started on May 5th of 2003 and changed the way that social media
operated from that day. The goal of the company has always been to be the leader of the world for
business social media. The major concept of LinkedIn is to operate as a site that people can log on and see
what new business opportunities that person might have as well as possible new connections.
The purpose for this report is to explain where linked in is currently and how it plans to expand
its company. The companys focus is to gain an increase in the amount of involvement its users put
towards the website. Increasing the amount of people that use LinkedIn throughout the world would also
have a greater affect for all of its users. The ability for users to reach out to more people relays on the
amount of people who sign up for the website. With having larger crowds of people sign up for the
website then there will be a greater interest for new people to join.
There are many reasons for the significance of why LinkedIn needs to increase its business size.
When more people join the website then more people will be able to reach their future employers. The
larger the base of perspective employees can also interest management in companies to sign up for
LinkedIn. The issue that LinkedIn has currently is that over one third of all members are from the United
States. As much as this can be thought as good more prospective employees and managers this also has a
hindrance to people on LinkedIn. With so much of the base of people consisting from one country there is
a chance that people from outside the United States would not be interested in joining the social media
site. It is of this importance that LinkedIn focus on gaining a larger involvement from people from around
the world. The more people that are on the website might be great for the people who are focused on only
working in their own country, but for the people who are invited in business in multiple countrys
LinkedIn might not be as drawing for them to join. With this being stated it is important to note that there
has been movement to invent outside of the United States. The key difference for how LinkedIn operates
from most business is that because it is an online website there is no physical presences that has to be in
each country for the business to operate. As long as the person has access to the internet there is a good
possibility that the person can get in touch with LinkedIn. The key for LinkedIn however would be to
exploit this possibility of easy expansion and enter as many countrys as it can. Not many company have
the means or the ability to enter into multiple countries and this is something that LinkedIn can use to
their advantage as well. Because so many business in the world are simply not big enough to enter
multiple countrys the use of LinkedIn can be helpful. If LinkedIn were to focused on gaining more
involvement from its users by promoting the users ability to reach out to perspective clients in other
countrys there is a good chance that more people will use what LinkedIn has to offer. The faster that the
word spreads of a companys product the happier the company is. The same can be said for LinkedIn and
its users. The faster a user has the ability to spread the word of who they are to the positive buyers there is
a greater chance that the people who are interested in LinkedIn will actually sigh up for the service.
LinkedIn it has many areas that it will need to focus on if it wishes to gain an increased level of
involvement from its users. With many of LinkedIn users consisting from the age groups of middle age
there is an importance that the company increases the interest in its website from all age groups. There is
only a 13% of users that are considered millennials and those numbers are too low for the company. If
LinkedIn is expecting to exist in the future it will need to target the millennials age group and convince
them that this is the website for them. The focus of linked in is also to get a larger involvement from the
world population that is using the social media site. Increasing the amount of users that are using
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LinkedIn throughout the world will also motivate new comers to join the website as well. The key to
gaining increased users will also focus on how the site can apply to any countrys population. The larger
the interest that the world has in LinkedIn the more its current users will benefit.
The topics of this report will be presented to show importance in multiple aspects of LinkedIns
future. There is also many key focus that will be presented throughout the report. The first focus will
speak about the plans on reaching out to larger demographics. The following topic will be on expanding
throughout the world. The topic after that will be about how the site can increase users to come back to
the site. And finely the report will conclude on how LinkedIn will diversify its operations to stay afloat in
the years to come.

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Findings
Plans on reaching a larger demographic
As with any business it is important to try to target as many generations as possible as well as any
demographic. The importance of reaching out to as many people as possible brings the possibility that
that business will be able to be successful throughout the years because they have covered so many types
of people.
Millennials
Targeting a group like millennials is a lot harder said than done. The hard part about targeting
millennials is that they are the most likely to question the positions the above them at the same time
showing no interest staying at a company for a long time. If LinkedIn planes to be existent in the future it
is important that millennials are targeted because soon millennials will be the majority in the workforce.
The importance to gather the interest of millennials will also have an effect on LinkedIns because they
can provide key information about what the new generation is thinking. The more focused the millennials
are given the more likely that there will be good things to come from the investment of the new
generation. Like with many new generation comes change. With the industry revolution there was the
robber barons. To the newer generation of the baby boomers who created the internet. It is unknown what
the millennials will bring to the table that will change the world forever but with investment the payoff
could be huge. The importance of LinkedIn success can be attribute to the ideas that the younger
generation has since they grew up in a time there the world was already hyper connected. The World is
flat by Tomas Friedman is true to this point. As the world gets more advanced the ability for one country
on one side of the ocean can communicate with the other side instantly. LinkedIns potential investment
of attracting the millennials can help LinkedIn succeed as well as other business. By getting millennials to
sign up for their site more people will also become interest in the site with the large base of prospective
employees.
Working Class
The larger the workforce becomes the more likely people will want to be able to target the key
prospective employees business will want to attract. The working class of any country is the group of
people who drive a country. They are the ones that drive income into the nation and provide better
opportunities for the health of the nation. It is important of LinkedIn to target anyone included in the
working class most importantly because that is LinkedIns focus. To add to that importance is
understanding that many types of people who are working have different interest on where and who they
work for. Some people may prefer a low stress job well others might prefer a high stress, high reward job.
The key for LinkedIn is to focus in on these people and ask themselves the question how will users use
our site? as well as how would the users can get in contact with the job they wish to achieve. As in any
online site there needs to be a reason the person wants to engage on the site and because of LinkedIns
focused on pleasing the working class it can be simpler for them to reach new users. If LinkedIn wishes to
gain more interest from the working class they will need to appeal more important in a persons life
looking for a job. By displaying to users that LinkedIn is a great place to reach out and make new
connections it will be possible for LinkedIn to improve its user base.

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Executives
LinkedIn has a large potential to increase its user base by displaying to prospective users that
there is powerful people using LinkedIn. Increasing the amount of executives that use LinkedIn will not
only attract other executives to join the site but as will increase the amount of general users who wish to
be employees of companies that the executives work for. The key that may lead to a windfall of users is
the sparked interest of users realizing that there next job will be achieved through LinkedIn. By getting
executives to join LinkedIn the chances that new employees have an ability to fast track there career is
much higher. Getting users to have a belief that the access to a better job can be lead from LinkedIn will
greatly help everyone. Because the moral of users of LinkedIn will be much higher and more people will
want to join LinkedIn. Greatly increasing the involvement as well as amount of people using LinkedIn in
the future.

Focusing on expanding throughout the world

Entering into the world market can be a daunting task for anyone. It can either brake a company
or lead that company to unprecedented greatness. The ability that LinkedIn has is very unique in the sense
of expanding worldwide. The ability that LinkedIn has is that it can quickly and efficiently expand to a
new country because it has no need for a physical presence because it exist almost entirely online.

United States Market

The United States can be considered the biggest asset to LinkedIn as well as one of its biggest
weekends. The most important part for LinkedIn is that the United States provide more users than any
other country that uses LinkedIn. These same benefit can also come as a weakness to LinkedIn because it
can cause the company to focus on the USA and not the rest of the world. The key to is for the company
to take a better understanding of the world use of LinkedIn and use that to its advance and built off of that
so that it can draw in more users. The ability that the company has in the USA is that it has proven very
successful in the United States and this can lead to a draw of people from around the world. The USA
platform can be used as the flagship to convince other countrys that the number one country in the world
has become even more successful with the use of LinkedIn and by doing this they can convince the rest of
the world that if they would like to compete in the business world of the united states that they too will
have to use LinkedIn as how the United States dose.

The World
The world platform for LinkedIn can be on the most impotent markets for the company. The key
to utilizing the world market is to understand that every country has its own specific whys that it prefers
to operate. The trick for LinkedIn is that if it can tap into how each country operates in business then they
can be successful in new countries. The trick to being successful in these new countrys will really
heavily on staying in touch with the people and knowing what they would like out of LinkedIn. The world
has almost seven billion people now and it is important to try and reach as many of them as possible. The
advantage that LinkedIn has with opening in new countries is that it is virtually entirely an internet
business so the need for a physical presence is not needed. The ability to expand to new countrys will
really heavily on the focus of how to attract new consumers to join LinkedIn. The use of displaying that
employees can quickly get in touch with employers can be one of the largest draws for people to try
LinkedIn in the world market. The other key aspect that LinkedIn will need to focus on is how the world
will perceive LinkedIn. If the world market feels that the information and the connections that LinkedIn is
meaningful then there is a better chance that people will use LinkedIn. As it is for anyone in the world, no
one wants to feel there time has been wasted. The interest that no one wants to waste time can be a way
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that LinkedIn can market itself because it can display how people can get in touch with employers faster.
The world is gaining interest in what LinkedIn can provide. As shown in figure one the world from all
corners is gaining interest in LinkedIn. (Source http://www.vincos.it/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/the-state-oflinkedin.png)

Figure 1

Potential new outlets

The world is growing, and as there are more countrys that are going from underdeveloped to
developing it is important for all business to look at the potently new markets with care. LinkedIn can
greatly excel the world market by tapping into this new markets. As the world grows people are becoming
more interesting in competing at the global level. It is of this that linked in has to take into account the
working class of employees and how they view LinkedIn. Understanding that users are demanded specific
items from social media sites is something that LinkedIn can use to its advantage in potential new
markets. Figure two explains what specifically people are expecting from social media. (Source:
http://www.marketingcharts.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/LinkedIn-B2C-Content-Marketing-Topics-July2014.png)

Figure 2

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Creating a website that keeps users coming back

The major importance to LinkedIn can be the care for getting the users to log back in a second
time. The worry is that people can be attracted to the website and like the fact that there is a good ability
to meet new people at one point, but however drop off the grid if they find the site useless later on in their
life. The goal here is that LinkedIn needs to market itself to display to its users that they are better off if
they maintain their activity on the site then when there off on their own trying to get a job.

Strong user base

The larger the amount of users use the website on a consistent basses the better off LinkedIn is.
The more that people feel that they are getting a better value for their time spend on LinkedIn the more
likely they are to remain active. Prospective users will notice that the membership that people have with
LinkedIn is very strong and this will motivate new people to join the website. The belief of the new users
is that if people are going to use the site they are active which will lead them to a better chance of getting
the job that they wish to achieve. If people however begin to believe that the website is not holing users
that strong then LinkedIn runs the risk of losing a large amount of its users. The site has to create a draw
that will keep people in the need that if they go to long without accessing LinkedIn that they are
diminishing their chances of achieving there goals.

Diversification
Users that believe that there words are not falling on death ears is more likely to keep costumers
coming back. If the crowed of people that are on LinkedIn are all form the same location it is likely that
people will stop using the website because there is little chance for a person to progress in there career.
LinkedIn has to maintain the progress it is making of reaching out to new groups of people and gaining
access to knowledge of people from all over the world. The more people feel involved with LinkedIn the
more likely that people from different backgrounds will sign up for the website. The key would be to
reach all types of people so that someone who is looking for a job has good access to reach people in their
field as well as people who understand where they are coming from.

Increasing Popularity
The Importance as with any businesses is to reach out to as many people as possible. Increasing
the popularity can benefit everyone. It would allow for current users to gain access to more people who
will sign up for the website. It will most impotently help out LinkedIns bottom line. As well as all the
new people who will be educated about LinkedIn as well as what it does and how it can help them
improve their business career. The benefits from popularity are huge. The importance of popularity are
even larger. The more the website is spoken about in public the more likely highly influenced people will
join the website creating a better environment on the site. The stronger community would motivate new
people to join the site because of the highlights of people who have joined and what rolls they play in the
business world. The benefit to more people can lead to many finance gains that will help LinkedIn
running as a company as well as provide a stronger foundation so it can make though divisions in the
future.

Diversifying its operations into markets outside of LinkedIn

Business can be successful in many ways and using multiple avenues can cause a company to
have an economic advantage over the competition. LinkedIn as with any business has planes that can
enter more forms of business because of the benefits that come with it. By entering multiple forms of
business LinkedIn increases its chances of surviving through economic struggle and also doing very well
during an economic boom.

New Markets
LinkedIn has the potential to enter into many different types of markets. It can enter into markets
that really heavily on the business form of social media as is how it has done currently. The company can
also reach out to markets that can be a little bit of a step for LinkedIn if it means good returns. The
impotent part for LinkedIn to remember is that not to diversify to an extreme. LinkedIn should not join a
busses that is for example a car building company. Largely because this type of business has no
similarities to LinkedIn as well as people are mostly likely not to trust a car company that is run by an
online website. The more that LinkedIn diversifies its business plan the more likely it runs the risk of
entering a market that is to extreme for LinkedIn to handle.

Controlled Expansion
As LinkedIn expands it is also important that it does not expand to fast. If LinkedIn expands at a
rate that can cause it to lose control of what it holds it would most likely cause the whole company of
LinkedIn to fall apart. The trick for the company would be to gradually enter new markets. Entering
markets that look promising that are also related to the current statues of the company. The areas that
LinkedIn can focus on that would have a good chance of success would be those that are related in online
and interacting with users. Much like how many companys go into business consulting, LinkedIn has a
high potential to market its own business plan to others and teach other companys how to be successful
in the world we leave in today

The bottom line

Understanding how much profit new business adventures is probably the most important part of
diversifying any business. LinkedIn can try many markets and see how they go but it will come down to
the fact of if they can reach a profit and is it a good profit. LinkedIns success in other fields can greatly
help the main companys operations by allowing for a larger cash inflow. If the cash inflow of LinkedIn is
increase the everyone can benefit. If there is a chance that profits will go up then more money can be
invested in the infrastructure of LinkedIn and increasing the overall performance and quality of the
LinkedIn Company.

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CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS

LinkedIn has shown throughout the years that it is a growing company and that more people are
likely to join the social media site. The goal that LinkedIn has is that it has to reach to as many people as
possible and convince them that there company is a place there they can go farther with the career. The
importance that LinkedIn has to stress to people is that if they use LinkedIns site that the user will benefit
from it financially and that everyone can go home happy.
The summary of this report is that LinkedIn is a growing company with a positive outlook. There
is a good chance that the company is moving in the right direction to spread the word of its product and
what it has to offer. It is also important to bring up that LinkedIn relies on its users because the users are
the ones to truly bring new people to the site. The more influence and positive people that are in the
business world that are using are the more people that will also join in order to gain access to these
people. Linked in has shown that it has a true potential to reach broad markets throughout the world and
has a good possibility of being one of the strongest social media sites.
The Conclusion of this report has shown that in order for LinkedIn to improve to an even higher
standard in the business world it will have to improve its ability to reach the world market. By accusing
the amount of people that are throughout the world and using their ability to strengthen the website can
greatly lead LinkedIn to a stronger standing in business. More people in the world will hear about
LinkedIn and the word of mouth of people will spread that about LinkedIn because of the include it has
had in peoples lives.
The Recommendations for LinkedIn is to focus on what it does best and market itself to the world
as the best business platform for all prospective employees and management. The more that LinkedIn
spreads the word about how it is the best the more likely people will sign up to the website. The
improvements that LinkedIn can make is to target the world population better and that will lead to a long
term increase in profits.

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References
1) http://www.marketingcharts.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/LinkedIn-B2C-ContentMarketing-Topics-July2014.png
2) http://www.vincos.it/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/the-state-of-linkedin.png
3) https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/38-quotes-thatll-inspire-you-become-better-leaderbradberry
4) https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/20130523101341-64875646-careful-these-25-quoteswill-inspire-you
5) https://www.linkedin.com/company/free-inspirational-quotes
6) http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/r/reid_hoffman.html

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