LinkedIn's Ten Years of Phenomenal Growth
It’s odd that LinkedIn, which celebrated a birthday this week, has had such a relatively quiet existence online for the past ten years. Once only able to boast 2,500 members, today it has one and a half times that many employees scattered around the globe. That user-membership number today is up to 225 million people who help the company bring in a staggering $325 million in revenue each quarter.
LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman describes to The Next Web how the company was started in a “dot-com winter” and how “Internet ventures were looked upon with skepticism.” While this may be true, the company, according to co-founder Allen Blue, was started solely “to help every professional find a job that they love and be great at it.” An overwhelming majority of the revenue that the site generates comes from helping employers and prospective employees make those ever-important connections.
While LinkedIn’s success is undeniably impressive, when you combine their simple mission statement with the heralded resumes of the company’s founders in a historically bad job market, it’s really no surprise that the company has been so profitable.
Amid all of its success and its hundreds of millions of users, what is surprising is that there are still so many people who admittedly don’t know what LinkedIn is, who do not use it at all (especially surprising for those looking for jobs), and who are downright using it poorly.
Not everyone is confused as to the site’s purpose and value; some have created jobs and advice columns purely based on helping people improve their images on the social media site. Whether you’re a professional with countless connections and you just need help staying in touch with all of them or you’re a recent graduate who is perhaps looking to make your very first connection, there are numerous resources out there to help you get started.
How has LinkedIn benefitted you over the years? Got any tips for those who still may be unsure if the site is for them? Share in the comments section below!
