LinkedIn, the social network for business professionals, launched LinkedIn Surveys today, which enables business-to-business (B2B) marketers to collect market intelligence from its users.
LinkedIn’s user base totals about 30 million professionals, of which about 13 million reside outside the United States. The expanded userbase can provide vital B2B information to marketers, who will also have the ability to categorize the responses by seniority in their company, age, function, country and company size.
Dan Shapero, Director of Business Services at the LinkedIn Research Network, believes their users give LinkedIn a distinct research advantage over other data providers. “LinkedIn overcomes quality and authenticity issues that other sample providers face,” Shapero went on. “Because of the public and self-policing nature of LinkedIn, members provide deep and accurate profile information and they update that information constantly.”
For their participation, users will be compensated; “Users will be offered rewards to share their behavior like cash incentives, donations to a charity of their choice, and merchandise,” said Shapero. “The other reward is that this research might be used to improve the industries they work in.”
LinkedIn users that choose to participate will receive about four market research survey invitations per year, on average. ver time, Shapero estimates this figure will increase to one survey invitation per month.
This could be a significant step forward in using a social media platform to garner vital data from their userbase.
For more information, vist LinkedIn.com.
– Bill Holmes
