Exclusive | Linked(In) to Indian growth

The world’s largest professional networking site, LinkedIn is having a dream run as far as its Indian market is concerned, growing at over 400 per cent since 2009. Not only its head count has gone up from 59 to over 200 but its Indian subscribers base too has expanded to 18 million Says Nishant Rao, Country Head, India, LinkedIn, on an optimistic note, “ India has become the second largest market for LinkedIn in three years of its launch here. Going forward, with more professionals and companies turning to social media for job searches.  "We aim to tap into India"s professioinal workforce which is currently estimated at 80-85 millioin membersi.” Speaking exclusively to Adgully, he further said, “growth is not a problem for us as of now, it’s more about making sure that the member experience is good.”

Some of the insights given by LinkedIn are interesting. Globally, it has 200 million members and adds two members per second. It gets 5.55 billion professional search queries per year and 64 per cent of its members are outside the US. LinkedIn reported a 3x increase in weekly mobile visitors, with 27% rise in weekly page views in 2012, versus 15% weekly page views in 2011.

Says Rao, “Prominent corporates  are now relying on us/our pages for hiring key employees and using our direct sourcing solution.” He cited HCL Technologies and ING Vysya in this regard. Corporates use innovative features like Recruiter, corporate and employee branding, self-serve video ads, rich media profiles and mobile apps help members to refine recruitment searches and also read up on people, say before an interview, he added.

On asked what is reason for increased LinkedIn acceptance, Rao said,” we believe in the philosophy of engaging our customer by offering them continuous innovations that enables a more detailed, refined search with specific skill-sets and company insights.” Searching for the right candidate with specific skill-sets to suit an organisation’s requirements has become especially relevant in India post recession. “ Once companies import all their talent leads on LinkedIn’s Talent Pipeline tool, they are able to view the most updated LinkedIn profiles of these leads. This enables them to find the right candidates whenever they need to”

Mobile traffic constitutes 27 per cent of our entire traffic on a global basis and it is growing exponentially. Says Rao, “while we don’t share individual numbers for countries, the trends in India are very favourable towards mobile.” He does not really see mobile usage outstripping the web usage as far as LinkedIn is concerned. “This is because the pattern which we have noticed is that users start their day by accessing the site from a tablet or a mobile phone, then transition to the web while they are at their desks, and then come back to the mobile phones/tablets in the evening. So instead of opting for one medium or the other, users are actually leveraging both the mediums,” Rao adds.

On the challenges in the Indian market, Rao said, “awareness and education among members is challenging. A huge number of members are not aware and subsequently not using all the features. We are striving to get companies take control and own the employer’s branding and look at it as an investment, in the process taking advantage of the entire suite of services that LinkedIn offers.”

Going forward, LinkedIn plans to focus on high growth and increase its Indian consumer base by doing the right things. “I will also use the case studies of my interactions with customers globally and seeing how best we can use it in the India market,” he concludes.