It’s been more than 10 years since Reid Hoffman, an entrepreneur, investor and product strategist out of Oxford University, called his colleagues from PayPal and SocialNet to gather in his living room and start a new company called LinkedIn.

Hoffman officially announced on Sunday in a company blog that LinkedIn, the social networking site for professionals, is celebrating its 10th anniversary in the business.

The company started slow in its early days, with only 4,500 members after its first month, wrote Hoffman in the blog post. For a while, it never seemed to deliver on its promise, as there were some days when only 20 people would sign up to the service.

But it nearly looked unavoidable that LinkedIn would make it to the top, especially with the company’s mission of connecting the world’s professionals.

A decade after it launched in Cinco de Mayo 2003, LinkedIn now caters to more than 200 million users and employs 3,700 people in 26 offices worldwide.

In 2004, LinkedIn introduced new features such as Groups, and it partnered with American Express to focus in on small business owners.

A year later the company released its first business lines with Jobs and Subscriptions. It created a business model with job listings and tiered subscriptions to generate revenue. It now generates more than $300 million in revenue for each quarter.

Featured image by Mario Sundar / Flickr (CC)

Profitability was elusive to the company at first, but in 2006, LinkedIn finally made profit and introduced features such as Recommendations and People You May Know.

It was in 2007 that Hoffman stepped down as CEO to run product, and Dan Nye took the highest post in the company.

In 2008, LinkedIn opened an office in London, the first company office outside of the United States. It also launched French and Spanish language versions of the website.

Jeff Weiner, the current CEO of LinkedIn, took the helm from Nye in 2009 after serving as president of the company.

LinkedIn became a publicly traded company on the New York Stock Exchange, or NYSE, a year after Weiner stepped in as chief executive.

In 2012, LinkedIn implemented Project Inversion, a major revamp of the website and the company to focus on simplicity and growth.

This year LinkedIn reached the mark for 225 million members and now grows at more than two new members per second.

The beginning, the struggles, the milestones – LinkedIn went through all these things for the past decade.

The company’s 10th birthday is an achievement on its own, as Hoffman and his friends started the Internet company after the Dot-Com bust and thrived at a time when the world’s largest social networks were MySpace and Friendster. And Facebook, Twitter and Google+ were still relatively unknown to the public.

LinkedIn appeared before most of the major social networks we know of today entered the game. Facebook is a year younger than LinkedIn, Twitter is three years younger, and Google+ is eight years younger.

As part of the celebration, LinkedIn published a collection of photos that show the company’s evolution throughout the past decade.

LinkedIn Turns 10 Years Old Social Barrel - The Latest on Social Media

LinkedIn recently implemented a mention functionality aimed at improving and increasing user interaction throughout the professional social network. This new update was available to select users during the first week of April and updates continue to roll out to all English-speaking LinkedIn users. Global members will also be included in a future launch.

Featured image by Erin Kelly / Flickr (CC)

Mentions Hope to Increase Conversations

If your news feed is similar to mine, there probably aren’t a whole lot of conversations happening. I often see connections posting their own professional news or sharing relevant news and opinions, but rarely do I see comments on these posts. Mentions are meant to change that.

The new feature is similar to mentions and replies already used on the top 2 social networks, Facebook and Twitter.

Twitter users can mention and reply to other uses using the “@” symbol. These interactions appear in a different section of the network, depending on which version of Twitter you use. On the Twitter homepage, mentions appear in the “@Connect” tab while on apps this section might just be called “@Mentions.”

Facebook’s popular mention feature allows users to tag other users in their status updates and comments. Again, the “@” symbol is used to begin the tagging and mention process. These mentions make it easier for users engaged in the same conversation to indicate the user(s) they are responding to within the post.

According to the official blog post announcement by LinkedIn’s Angela Yang, the goal of LinkedIn’s mentions feature is to start conversations and share knowledge with other users. The feature will help users become more engaged with one another. These stronger connections will further develop a professional’s specialties and knowledge base by encouraging them to consistently discuss ideas, opinions and industry news.

How Do Mentions Work?

I’m pretty disappointed that a few weeks after the announcement, my account still hasn’t received the mentions update. But if your account has received the update, or will in the future, here’s a rundown on how exactly the mentions feature will work on the desktop version of LinkedIn.

To mention a LinkedIn user in a status update, simply begin typing your update. When you’re ready to mention an individual or company, start typing their name as it appears on the social network. Be aware that in order to mention a user in a status update post, they must be one of your first-degree connections. This will trigger a dropdown box where you’ll be able to click on the correct connection you wish to mention.

You can also mention users who are not a first-degree connection when they are engaged in a conversation that appears on your LinkedIn homepage. When responding to a comment, follow the same procedure and begin to type the user’s name. This user will then appear in a similar drop down box, but they will instead fall under a participant subcategory rather than under the connection subcategory.

Users who are mentioned in status updates and comments will be notified in the LinkedIn notification bar. According to the blog post and complimenting slideshow, these notifications will be delivered to users in real-time. This real-time notification will hopefully encourage users to converse with their connections, much like commenting is done on Facebook.

When to Use LinkedIn Mentions

Although the new mention feature seems to be a useful tool, you might be wondering how you can actually implement it during your everyday social media activities.

Like the example shown in the LinkedIn slideshow, mentions can be used to communicate a useful link or article to co-workers and other professional connections.

Mentions can also be used to acknowledge the success of your peers. For example, if your supervisor just won a prestigious industry award, you can mention their name and your company in a LinkedIn status update. This will send your supervisor a real-time notification and chances are, they’ll be flattered that you decided to publicly congratulate them while promoting your brand.

Mentions in comment threads can also be helpful when reading and logically ordering conversations between several different users. If you wish to reply directly to a user’s comment, you can mention their name and let them know if you agree or disagree. But always remember that even though you are mentioning another user, your comments are still public and viewable in the public conversation.

Mentions Sync with Twitter

If the users involved in your conversation have their Twitter accounts synced through LinkedIn, your mentions can also appear on your Twitter feed. Instead of displaying a user’s full name like it would on the LinkedIn feed, the user’s name will be translated to their Twitter username.

With the addition of mentions, LinkedIn has jumped on another part of the social media bandwagon. I, however, think it’s a great tool that I hope will increase meaningful conversations between professional connections.

Have mentions launched in your LinkedIn account yet? Do you plan to utilize them to target and converse with your connections?

About the Author:

Katie Elizabeth is a writer and social media consultant. She works with many different companies, including accredited online schools, real estate agencies, and small e-commerce sites. She enjoys traveling throughout the U.S. Follow her on Twitter.

LinkedIn Launches ‘Mentions’ Social Barrel - The Latest on Social Media

LinkedIn, proving more versatile as the top enterprise-focused social network of the world, is the top sales tool for sales representatives, says a new survey.

The survey comes from Jill Konrath and Ardath Albee who detail their findings in an eBook titled Cracking The LinkedIn Sales Code.

The survey lists 3,094 participants with varying roles in the sales industry including inside and outside sales representatives, consultants, sales managers and entrepreneurs. They also come from varying sizes of enterprises from small to large.

According to the eBook, 4.9 percent of those surveyed can be considered as Top Sellers and these people say that LinkedIn has been a very useful tool for them in their line of work.

These Top Sellers are found to be spending six or more hours per week on LinkedIn than other sales reps, implementing their plans.

Because they use LinkedIn so much in their work, they consider it to be an integral part of their business dealing.

One of the main uses LinkedIn offers to these top sellers is searching for and targeting people who they want to connect with, the eBook says.

Needless to say, Top Sellers on LinkedIn have great profiles that go beyond just being a resume: their profiles highlight results they can deliver to clients.

Image from Terry Chay on Flickr (CC)

Survey Says LinkedIn Is Top Sales Tool For Top Sales Reps Social Barrel - The Latest on Social Media

LinkedIn catered nearly 6 billion professional-related searches last year. Since then the world’s largest social network for professionals (third-largest overall, after Facebook and Twitter) has seen millions of searches to grab information from its search engine.

Whether users looked for contacts, people, companies, jobs, or groups, LinkedIn offered results based on a user’s profile, network, and how people within his or her network engage on the platform.

LinkedIn recently updated its search engine to offer a “smarter and more streamlined” service.

The professional social network said it merged searches for people, companies, and jobs into its algorithm.

Now users can just type in their search query into the search box and see a broad page of results.

The results page delivers content pulled from across the LinkedIn community: people, companies, jobs, and groups.

Featured image by smi23le / Flickr (CC)

To top it all off, the social network included a couple other new features.

1. Auto-Complete – Typing a search term will open a prompt with options on what you may be looking for. It stores previous searches into the history bank to optimize predictions the next time Linked search performs another query.

2. Suggested Searches – Typing a search term, such as “product manager,” will open sample search queries for information related to product manager. It includes a preview of top results on what you are looking for in just one click.

3. Smarter Query Intent Algorithm – Increase the number of search queries for LinkedIn content to teach its algorithm your intent over time. This helps provide the most relevant results.

4. Enhanced Advanced Search – LinkedIn redesigned the look and feel of advanced search and made it easier to filter search by company, location, school, and more.

5. Automated Alerts – You now have more time to do other stuff by saving searches. LinkedIn will send an alert message when results change.

LinkedIn said in a blog post no two LinkedIn professionals are the same. Even if two users search for the same content, results will differ and are customized based on their profiles.

The company’s efforts to improve search uses the platform’s ability to see and understand who the user is, who the user knows, and what the user’s network does to help find the content.

LinkedIn said it will build up its algorithm in search for better ways to dig into content within the platform, with more customized search results.

The roll out for smarter search started today and will visit all support markets worldwide in the coming weeks.

LinkedIn Search Got Smarts Social Barrel - The Latest on Social Media

During conferences and meetings, it is inevitable that people exchange business cards, with the assumption that potential partnerships or connections would be made.  However, after these events, the business cards sometimes get set aside and stacked in a corner, forgotten.  Because of this, a potential new business partnership is not made.

A Solution to Processing Business Cards

In order to solve the problem of forgotten business cards, a LinkedIn application can be used: CardMunch.  The first step is to take a photo of a business card, and then upload it.  The information will then be encoded by the people at CardMunch; this would include LinkedIn profile data.  After this, a person can now connect through LinkedIn.  The new contact info can be synchronized with his or her email, and a business message can be sent immediately.

LInkedIn app CardMunch is a solution to ignored business cards. (Image: XhaShao (CC) via Flickr)

Processing by Real People

What makes CardMunch unique is that business card information is processed by real people.  Traditionally, optical character recognition (OCR) tools are used; however, these are not able to recognize designs or detect anything unusual with the information.  With CardMunch, however, the job gets done very well because it is real people who are doing it.

One drawback to using CardMunch, though, is that it is limited to sending only standard invitations.  Still, it is possible that new features will be added in the future.  Nonetheless, the app is still really useful, not to mention economical, because it is absolutely free.

LinkedIn App Transforms Business Cards into Contacts Social Barrel - The Latest on Social Media

More than 58 million professionals have received more than one billion endorsements on LinkedIn. A feat it achieved in less than six months.

During that period, the social networking site for professionals has laid out endorsements for thousands of skills in different industries and disciplines.

The feat is hot on the heels of HP’s milestone to become the first company to reach one million followers on LinkedIn.

According to LinkedIn, a skill endorsement is a valuable way to make a mark in the vast world of professionals.

Featured image by Nan Palmero / Flickr (CC)

Peter Rusev, associate product manager at LinkedIn, said a skill endorsement increases the chance that a LinkedIn profile will be viewed or visited by as much as 4 times. It also shows the strengths of peers and colleagues.

Blogging, C++, Fitness, Water Treament – all of these are just a few from the myriad of skill endorsements found on LinkedIn. These very short blurbs also help strengthen the profiles of other members.

Rusev said LinkedIn has seen recommendations increase twice as much per week since its launch. And members keep adding new skills to bare their full armory.

He said endorsements can impress profile visitors – hiring managers, recruiters, partners, customers, and so on – because they can easily see the strengths and skills that a professional has to offer.

Now that more people will come to visit the profile, the account owner can smarten it up with more projects and work experiences, Rusev added. This will neatly go together with the endorsements from peers and colleagues.

LinkedIn has broken down the top skill endorsements to mark its major achievement, and a few additional statistics.

Top Ten Endorsements

1. Strategic Planning
2. Customer Service
3. Microsoft Office
4. Project Management
5. Recruiting
6. Public Speaking
7. New Business Development
8. Marketing Strategy
9. Telecommunications
10. Social Media

Important Facts

1. Visual C++ is the first skill endorsement.

2. A user endorsed Water Treatment to someone and it became the one-billionth skill endorsement.

3. LinkedIn members give 50 million endorsements per week.

4. More than 18 million members have endorsed other people.

5. More than 58 million members have been endorsed.

Today LinkedIn represents more than tens of thousands of skills and areas of expertise. Below are some of the different range of skills that are highly endorsed on the platform.

Fitness: 435,000 endorsements
Negotiation: 3,700,000 endorsements
Storytelling: 267,000 endorsements
Disaster Recovery: 890,000 endorsements
Tourism: 760,000 endorsements
Wine: 298,000 endorsements
Food Service: 251,000 endorsements
Renewable Energy: 671,000 endorsements
Preaching: 410,000 endorsements
Grant Writing: 687,000 endorsements
Mining: 577,000 endorsements
Adult Education: 253,000 endorsements
Creative Writing: 612,000 endorsements
Photography: 1,600,000 endorsements

One Billion Skill Endorsements Given On LinkedIn [INFOGRAPHIC] Social Barrel - The Latest on Social Media

HP is the world’s first company to reach one million followers on LinkedIn, the social networking site for professionals.

While reaching its one-millionth follower was a great feat, the numbers actually represent a more valuable asset: a large community of relevant specialists who interact with the IT firm in real time.

In February, HP CEO Meg Whitman shared on LinkedIn her insights about HP’s “taking on a turnaround.” And she said of plans to use the social network as a channel to share future company updates.

Feature image by Windell Oskay / Flickr (CC)

Natali Malaszenko, Vice President of Digital Marketing at HP, wrote on the firm’s LinkedIn corporate blog that the social network is a key platform for HP to reach out and build or strengthen its relationships with customers, partners, and prospects.

She said HP’s one million followers connect to more than 43 million LinkedIn professionals – about one-fourth of total LinkedIn users.

When these followers interact with HP’s LinkedIn community, each of their connections can also see it, she added.

LinkedIn allows HP to share information globally on its product solutions and insights about the future of technology.

According to LinkedIn’s Marketing VP Nick Besbeas, HP followers provide enormous value in four ways: engagement, targeting, segmentation, and amplification.

Engaged Followers

HP has a knack of sharing information – insights, products, updates, and so on – that its followers want. And these are not ads.

A LinkedIn member who plans to follow HP on the social network should expect relevant content that provide tips on his or her current job and what to do in the future.

Targeted Followers

Most of HP’s LinkedIn followers are senior leaders in their respective industries – the firm’s targeted followers.

In only two months HP added 300,000 followers through targeted LinkedIn Follow Ads, making sure the most sought-after people joined its network.

Besbeas said HP now has an opt-in community of its targeted followers.

Segmented Followers

HP, or Hewlett-Packard, is a multinational IT corporation with different products, services, software, solutions, and technologies across 19 categories in markets worldwide.

An organization as big as HP needs to influence different kinds of industry leaders.

HP followers are diverse. But it can segment its followers through LinkedIn, directly talking to professionals about relevant solutions.

HP’s Malaszenko said LinkedIn’s targeting ability helps HP to streamline its presence on the world’s third-largest social network (after Facebook and Twitter) and to improve its marketing campaigns.

She said LinkedIn’s targeting possibilities are extensive and specific. It allows HP to perfect its content strategy in real time and raises the value of each content the IT firm supplies.

Amplified Followers

HP’s LinkedIn followers are valuable because they share HP updates with their connections in three ways: likes, comments, and shares.

With 43 million connections to LinkedIn professionals, HP followers give the company more than enough additions to its growing community.

LinkedIn’s Beseas said HP followers are 2.5 times more likely to recommend the company than non-followers.

HP posts several status updates daily, amplifying its opportunities on LinkedIn.

As HP has shown, LinkedIn gives you an opportunity to target professionals and engage them with content that will drive results.

HP First Company To Reach One Million LinkedIn Followers [INFOGRAPHIC] Social Barrel - The Latest on Social Media

LinkedIn is planning to add some new features to its page, as part of a revamping that will make it easier for the network’s users to land their dream jobs. In addition, a new look will be introduced, as well as new tools that can help job seekers search for the specific career openings that match their skills and interests.

The “First Degree” Connection
One important feature that will be added to LinkedIn is the “first degree connection” mechanism. Basically, this feature will show the user the companies where their first degree “friends” are working for or connected with. In a way, this is similar to Facebook’s “mutual friends” mechanism; the only difference is that in LinkedIn, the main purpose is for bagging a new job rather than a new “friendship.”

LinkedIn revamps ‘Jobs’ page. (Image:Socialmediamx (CC) via Flickr)

Advanced Search Features
Another new feature is the “filtering” of job searches according to the following criteria: function, industry, zip code, and country. These will definitely help users to target a specific job post or perhaps a location where they would like to work in. What’s more, each time a new job opportunity that fits a user’s search criteria comes up, a notification will be sent to him or her. Likewise, the new “Save Job” button will allow them to monitor the job posts that they are interested in. All of these features will generally make searching for a job much easier.

“Job Seeker Premium” Features
Aside from the features mentioned above, LinkedIn users who are subscribed to a “Job Seeker Premium” account can also expect some new additions. First of all, their advanced search features would include an option for seeking job posts that match their salary expectations. Secondly, as premium account users conduct a job search, the site will provide them with some tips that can help them fully maximize their use of LinkedIn.

The new features, along with the newly-transformed search options, will be released within a few weeks to all LinkedIn members.

LinkedIn to Transform its ‘Jobs’ Page Social Barrel - The Latest on Social Media

LinkedIn has unveiled a new LinkedIn Jobs Page in a bid to help users land on their dream job.

Vaibhav Goel, assistant product manager at LinkedIn, writes in a company blog post that the new feature generates potential company hiring for job seekers.

First-degree connections who work for a particular company – dubbed by LinkedIn as an “in” – can help refer a user to an open position.

LinkedIn Jobs offers deeper job searches through Advanced Search, filtering vacant jobs by country, function, industry, and zip code.

Looking through a user’s browsing history – saved searches in particular, the new feature hastens the delivery of new results.

Another benefit from LinkedIn Jobs is the ease of access to “Jobs you may be interested in,” helping users find job opportunities based on their LinkedIn profile information.

And the LinkedIn Jobs page tracks all the jobs a user is interested in after clicking “Save Job.”

For a more refined job search, the social network added a paid option called LinkedIn Job Seeker Premium.

Premium subscribers will get a new Advanced Search filter for meeting salary requirements, and embedded tips.

LinkedIn is rolling out the new feature to users worldwide.

Featured image by smi23le / Flickr (CC)

Job Seeker Premium Features

1. Contact anyone directly with InMail

InMails are reliable electronic messages that allow users to contact other LinkedIn users.

According to LinkedIn, InMails are “response guaranteed”: those who do not receive a reply to an InMail within a week will receive a return credit on their account.

Unused InMails are collected and stored for up to 90 days for a subscriber.

2. Who’s Viewed Your Profile: Get the full list

LinkedIn says you can access the complete list of who viewed your profile – and how they found you – using Profile Stats Pro.

3. Zero in on $100K plus jobs with detailed salary information

Users can improve the search based on a designated salary and view detailed salary information on job posts.

PayScale provides the salary details and is available for most job posts in Australia, Canada, the U.K., and the U.S.

Salaries are based on job-specific attributes: industry, position, area, and other factors.

Companies who post jobs on LinkedIn do not necessarily back salary information, and real compensation may differ.

4. Move to the top of the list as a Featured Applicant

Each time users apply for a job through LinkedIn, their profile will lead the list of applicants.

Prezi chief evangelist Angelie Agarwal says Featured Applicant stands out, especially when everyone is fighting for attention.

5. Exclusive access to our job seeker community

Users can take advantage of their premium account by talking to LinkedIn experts and chatting with other LinkedIn subscribers.

6. Get noticed by recruiters and hiring managers with a Job Seeker Badge

The Job Seeker Badge appears on a user’s profile, next to the name in search results.

Job Seeker Badge is an optional feature, enabled and disabled through the account settings page.

By default, it is disabled after an upgrade to a Job Seeker Premium account.

7. Join Lindsey Pollak’s webinar: “Job Seeking on LinkedIn”

Users can get insider tips on how to use LinkedIn and their Job Seeker Premium account to find the dream job.

8. Get introduced to the companies you’re targeting

Users can take advantage of their network and meet company insiders through someone they already know on LinkedIn.

Premium accounts can hold up to 50 simultaneous, outstanding introduction requests.

9. Let recruiters message you for free with OpenLink

OpenLink (optional) raises chances of bumping into a job by allowing anyone on LinkedIn to send a message or job opportunity.

10. Get Priority Customer Service.

LinkedIn Job Seeker Wants Subscribers To Land The Dream Job Social Barrel - The Latest on Social Media

LinkedIn has teamed up with Professional Diversity Network (PDN) to help companies hire various professionals.

Diversity recruitment firm PDN handles a set of professional networking sites that aim for different professional groups.

LinkedIn, the world’s largest social network for professionals, will use PDN’s services to help hiring managers and job recruiters look for the best hires from a larger talent pool.

PDN groups include African Americans, Asian Americans, Latin Americans, LGBTs (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender), PWDs (people with disabilities), veterans, and women.

Wade Burgess, head of sales in North America for Talent Solutions at LinkedIn, said the firm – fresh from reaching a key milestone of 200 million members last month – caters to two new members each second.

He added that job recruiters should take advantage of the larger and more diverse pool of talents LinkedIn has to offer.

Featured image by Mario Sundar / Flickr (CC)

The partnership with PDN means LinkedIn wants to expand its diverse professional network to help its more than 13,000 clients hire the right candidates in more places online.

Jim Kirsch, chief executive officer at PDN, said a common faith in the ability of professional networks brought LinkedIn and PDN together.

He said American companies now know that competition requires employees to reflect a more diverse population and customer base.

While hiring managers, job recruiters, and job seekers migrate to professional networks to look for diverse candidates and network, shape careers and build professional brands, PDN knows basic job boards are insufficient means to build the future workforce.

Kirsch added that beyond the striking changes in demographics worldwide, a more diverse workforce is now necessary because of tighter government standards for compliance in diversity.

PDN said that its well-established marketplace for diverse professionals and groups will give LinkedIn’s clients an easier time to improve accordance with regulatory bodies, such as the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs.

The partnership will give LinkedIn’s clients the ability to post jobs on PDN’s network of eight websites that serve roughly two million diverse professionals.

The PDN network of professionals includes AMightyRiver.com (African American), AsianCareerNetwork.com (Asian Americans), iHispano.com (Hispanic), Military2Career.com (veterans), OutProNet.com (LGBT), ProAble.net (PWDs), ProDivNet.com (diverse), and WomensCareerChannel.com (women).

Established in 2000, PDN also has business relationships with more than 50 civil rights and professional organizations, such as the Association of Latino Professionals in Finance and Accounting, Job Opportunities for Disabled American Veterans, the NAACP, and the National Council of La Raza.

LinkedIn Inks A Deal With Professional Diversity Network Social Barrel - The Latest on Social Media