As part of its broader Q3 2020 Performance report, Microsoft has reported that LinkedIn has seen ongoing growth in both total members and engagement. But there’s also been a slowdown in ad spend and job listings as the impacts of COVID-19 take effect.
In terms of users, LinkedIn is now up to 690 million total members, increasing from 675 million back in January. Total members, of course, are not active users, the more common stat used to reflect social platform performance, but as an indicative measure, it does show that LinkedIn is continuing to expand, and gain traction in more markets over time.
In regards to active usage, Microsoft says that Linkedin sessions have continued to rise, up 26% for the quarter.
Microsoft has reported ongoing sessions growth on LinkedIn, with the platform seeing “record levels of engagement“.
How you view that number will be relative – some businesses are seeing significantly more referral traffic from LinkedIn, and increased engagement on their posts, while others believe that much of that extra ‘engagement’ is actually being fueled by Facebook-like personal posts and gimmicky updates designed to draw clicks, as opposed to communicating professional information.
Your own experience will inform how you view such, but in overall terms, LinkedIn now has more users than ever before, and those users are more active on the platform than in times past. That could facilitate greater opportunity to connect.
Indeed, during the COVID-19 lockdowns, LinkedIn is seeing even higher levels of engagement
“Professionals watched nearly 4 million hours of content on LinkedIn Learning in March, a nearly fifty percent increase month-over-month. With LinkedIn Live […] streams are up 158% since February.”
Neither is a real surprise, though the increased interest in LinkedIn Live could also be worth noting in your approach to the platform. LinkedIn added LinkedIn Live to company pages back in January.
In terms of revenue, as you can see in the above snapshot, LinkedIn revenue increased 21% for the quarter, but it is seeing slowing demand in both its ads and job listings due to the impacts of COVID-19.
“We expect continued strong engagement on the platform. However, a material mix of revenue is driven by customer hiring needs and advertising, therefore we expect a significant slowdown to mid-single digit revenue growth.”
Given its correlating expansion in overall members and usage, LinkedIn looks set to limit the impacts of the lockdowns on its bottom line. But they will have an impact on performance – and that’ll likely be ongoing, depending on how long the COVID-19 mitigation processes remain in place.
Overall, LinkedIn continues to perform well, and deliver good results for parent company Microsoft. Again, personal experience will dictate your view of the platform, but the data shows that there are more people using the app, and with more tools to connect, like live-streaming and its recently expanded Events feature, it could be worthy of increased focus.
