Currently there is a lot of dialogue regarding Google+ and how it compares to Facebook and Twitter, implying that these 3 are the social network Titans.
But What About LinkedIn?
In June 2011 LinkedIn became the number 2 social network in the US, with 33.9 million visitors that month, up 63% on June 2010 (Facebook had 160.9 million US visitors and Twitter 30.6 million the same month).
As of 4 August 2011 LinkedIn had over 120 million members worldwide; with 26 million of those based in Europe. All 2011 Fortune 500 companies have executives on LinkedIn and 75 of the Fortune 100 companies use LinkedIn’s hiring solutions.
While Google+ is growing rapidly and the rankings are likely to shift in the coming months there is no denying that LinkedIn is a popular networking site for professionals, and especially for B2B companies.
But What About Sharing?
On 30th November 2010 LinkedIn announced their ‘share button’ which, when added to a webpage, allowed readers to easily share that content to their LinkedIn profile and/or LinkedIn groups. Many business oriented sites added the button quickly, including Forbes and Bloomberg, and others slowly added it in the following months.
By day I look after online communications for an Ireland-based, B2B professional services company and in April of this year I added the LinkedIn share button to the company blog, and started our senior managers actively sharing company content on LinkedIn.
The Result?
A 30% jump in traffic over the same period in 2010, purely from LinkedIn!
And, people were not only reading and sharing content, but sticking around to learn more about the company, and complete online forms – meaning not only are we seeing a huge jump in traffic, but we are also generating more inbound leads!
LinkedIn A Superstar For B2B
Of course, not all companies are guaranteed to see this kind of result, it will depend on a number of factors, including the industry.
But what if you did see this kind of result? Or an even better one? Isn’t it worth trying?
Add the LinkedIn share button today, it can’t hurt, and it could be the best decision you make in 2011 for website traffic…
[...] Comments « Increase Website Traffic by 30% With LinkedIn [...]
That sounds fantastic – People should go for it and imagine the increase they would get if they also added a Trust passport on their site. In todays market we all need to hear ways of operating smarter, all tools possible to leverage more business should be embraced. Roger Laird