LinkedIn: Crossing Borders and Connecting People
Last week, Comscore announced our acquisition of Nedstat, a leading provider of global analytics and online optimization based in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. It was great to welcome the Nedstat folks as part of the Comscore team, and we have already begun the process of integrating our companies.
In working with a handful of people from Nedstat, I noticed that I’ve begun receiving several invitations to connect with them via LinkedIn. The diligence with which my Dutch counterparts appeared to be using the popular business networking tool got me wondering if there were any cultural dynamics at play.
So I decided to investigate the usage of LinkedIn across countries to see what sort of differences in behavior might be evident. When I looked at the Internet markets with the highest penetration of visitors to LinkedIn in July, I was surprised to find that my hypothesis was indeed founded in reality: The Netherlands ranked #1 among all Internet markets in terms of LinkedIn penetration (i.e. the percent of Internet users visiting the site) at 15.2%. Interestingly, this popularity was also evident in a handful of surrounding countries in Europe including Ireland (14.7%), Denmark (12.1%), Belgium (10.0%) and the U.K. (9.4%).
The Dutch are not just the most likely to visit LinkedIn but they are also among the most highly engaged. They rank #1 among all markets in terms of the average number of pages of content viewed (64 page views per visitor) and #2 after the U.K. in average time spent (21 minutes per visitor).
It was only a matter of time before online social networking fused with real-world business networking in a meaningful way, and LinkedIn is a testament to the emergence of this trend. It should not come as much of a surprise then that LinkedIn attracted 50 million visitors worldwide in July, up 16% in just the past six months. Perhaps more importantly, the site is beginning to surpass 10% penetration, an important critical mass threshold at which many networks begin to expand virally.
In this increasingly global economy, utilities like LinkedIn will only grow in importance in helping connect people and cross borders. In this case, it is helping me get to know more about my new colleagues, and that is a very good thing.