Today, LinkedIn is the most important and popular platform for all business professionals among all social media platforms, with an average of 1 in 3 registered professionals worldwide. But very few people know about its roots, when it started, and its journey. In this article, we will share light on the history of LinkedIn. Let’s get started.
History of LinkedIn
Founders of LinkedIn
LinkedIn is a professional social networking site founded by Reid Hoffman and Allen Blue in California, Mountain View. Hoffmann has degrees and masters from Stanford and Oxford Universities. He held important positions, particularly in Apple and Fujitsu. He participated in the creation of PayPal and was involved in Venture Capital Companies. Allen Blue is also a Stanford graduate and held important positions in industry and the US government.
They recruited former colleagues to find LinkedIn, where they were assisted by other founding team members from PayPal and Socialnet.com, namely Jean-Luc Vaillant, Eric Ly, Stephen Beitzel, David Eves, Ian McNish, Yan Pujante, Chris Saccheri and Konstantin Guericke.
2002-2004
- The professional social networking site was founded on December 28, 2002.
- It was officially launched to the public in May 2003. The main objective of inventing LinkedIn was to create connections in the professional world. Within a month of their operation, they earned over 4500 members.
- In 2004, LinkedIn reached 1 million users. LinkedIn accelerated its growth as features designed to appeal to small business owners like address book uploads, Groups, and partnership with American Express were rolled out.
2005 – 2006
- In January 2005, the company formerly LinkedIn Ltd changed its name to LinkedIn Corp. LinkedIn started to enhance its services and launched jobs and subscription options.
- The number of users grew to 3.3 million in the month’s first quarter.
- In 2006, LinkedIn released its new feature called ‘people you may know’ for people open to new connections. After four years of launch, LinkedIn recorded its first ever impressive profit in March 2006.
2007-2008
- In 2007, it became profitable after a long journey and reached 10 million users. Things started to get serious, Reid decided to focus on running the product, and Dan Nye stepped up to lead the company. LinkedIn gets its new leadership where Reid stepped down from the CEO role, passing the reigns to Dan Nye.
- In 2008, LinkedIn expanded its headquarters to the UK, Spain, and France. By then, the platform had grown to over 15 million members.
2009-2011
- In November 2009, LinkedIn opened its office in Mumbai, India and soon after that in Sydney as it started its Asia-Pacific team expansion. There was a change in the top roles with the arrival of Jeff Weiner, who first joined as President and then became the CEO.
- In 2010, LinkedIn got a growth hit with 90 million members and 1000 users. In 2010, LinkedIn opened an international headquarters in Dublin, Ireland.
2011-2015
- By 2011, it had more than 100 million members worldwide. After substantial growth and a lot of private investment, LinkedIn filed an initial public offering in January 2011 and moved to the stock market as a publicly traded company on May 11.
- In 2013, LinkedIn celebrated its 10th anniversary and grew the network to over 225 million users. LinkedIn started to target young professionals and recent graduates to become new members.
- LinkedIn settled a lawsuit in 2015 for $13 million.
2016-2021
- In 2016, Microsoft acquired LinkedIn for approximately $26 million. It had over 500 million members in more than 200 countries.
- By 2017, the desktop version was launched. With its latest version, LinkedIn provides a seamless experience to the user both on mobile and desktop devices.
- In 2019, LinkedIn rolled out its new feature open for business, allowing freelancers to be discovered on the platform.
- In June 2020, Jeff Weiner stepped down as CEO and became executive chairman after 11 years.
- Microsoft ended LinkedIn operations in China in October 2021.
LinkedIn in the present day
According to LinkedIn statistics, it has grown to 850 million users worldwide in more than 200 countries. The social network has grown steadily since its launch, with two new user accounts created every second and over 1 million new users joining weekly.
Future of LinkedIn
LinkedIn has constantly been flourishing. It keeps adding new features to the platform for a better user experience. It has become the best professional platform for serious business professionals.
Important Facts about LinkedIn
General Statistics
- LinkedIn has 35 offices in more than 30 cities worldwide, including 10 in the United States.
- LinkedIn is available in 25 languages, allowing many global users to access the network in their native language.
- 57% of LinkedIn users identify as men, with 43% identifying as women.
- Over 77% of LinkedIn users are from outside the US.
- Almost 60% of LinkedIn users are between 25 and 34 years old.
- Forty-nine million people use LinkedIn to search for jobs each week.
- 6 People are hired through LinkedIn every minute.
- LinkedIn saw 15.4 billion sessions in Q2 FY22.
- 30% of a company’s engagement on LinkedIn comes from employees.
- LinkedIn posts with images get 2x higher engagement.
LinkedIn Ad statistics
- LinkedIn ads can reach 14.6% of the world’s population.
- LinkedIn ad’s reach grew by 22 million people in Q4 2021.
- Brands have seen a 33% increase in purchase intent from ad exposure on LinkedIn.
- Marketers see up to 2x higher conversion rates on LinkedIn.
LinkedIn Business Statistics
- 4 out of 5 people on LinkedIn drive business decisions.
- There are 5 million companies on LinkedIn.
- LinkedIn saw a 37% year-over-year growth in revenue in Q2 FY22.
- 40% of B2B marketers surveyed indicated LinkedIn as the most effective channel for driving high-quality leads.
- 93% of B2B content marketers use LinkedIn for organic social media marketing.
- 77% of content marketers say LinkedIn produces the best organic results.
- 75% of B2B marketers use LinkedIn ads.
Key Takeaways
The epic history of LinkedIn started as most companies do, and it is progressing rapidly. Hope this article helped you understand the history of LinkedIn and how it has evolved over the years.
