LinkedIn mulling local features for India

Lately, LinkedIn has been in action on the mobile front. The company has revamped its mobile and web apps, and added some nifty features too. The company has also announced the LinkedIn app for Nokia Asha budget devices in India. We had a quick tete-a-tete with Nishant Rao, Country Head, LinkedIn India, talking about the global shift to mobile platforms, evaluating opportunities and growth in India.

Talking about the recent partnership with Nokia Asha, he tells us that LinkedIn is not targeting any specific segment in India and want to make sure that professionals irrespective of their economic funds or location are able to enjoy the richness of LinkedIn for better productivity. In fact, he tells us that the company is evaluating both handsets and platforms.

The revamped LinkedIn app focuses on content and personalisation. By now, we all know that content and personalisation are a great deal in the social space – something other popular social networks like Facebook and Twitter have been focusing on. LinkedIn is known to be the white-collared professional site. This is undoubtedly a gradual shift from professional-only space. So, where is LinkedIn exactly trying to fit into the social space? Without missing a beat, Nishant quickly says, “Our focus area still very much remains the same. Professional context is what LinkedIn is all about. I think what you are seeing is the broadening of the word professional. Earlier the professional profile record of a person was the resume. But resume is static, and people slowly moved to LinkedIn for professional profile uploads. Over the time, people updated their profiles but along with their professional records, they’re also doing so much professional activity on a daily, weekly and monthly basis. Now, how to get all of that captured representing a professional? That’s where the focus on content lies. It can be a professional profile where you can upload your pictures, documents and so on, giving people a well rounded sense of who you are.”

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A professional social site

The gradual shift to mobile platform is a global phenomenon and obviously LinkedIn too wants to capitalise on mobile traffic. Over the time, an increasing number of LinkedIn members are active on their mobile devices. The company has started considering newer devices and platforms with the recent ones being Windows and now Asha. The company already has its apps for popular OSes such as Android and iOS. About 30 percent of the LinkedIn traffic comes from mobile on a global basis.

Nishant adds, “With mobile, we are careful that the experience is targeted considering two aspects – the first part is that we try making the design of the app consistent with the experience online. But that doesn’t necessarily mean bringing the complete desktop experience and we focus on used cases to bring what is essential. In the second part is that the app should be helpful or insightful for users in a way that it doesn’t take away from the limited form factor of the device.”

Linkedin entered India in 2009. Back then, the mobile craze was slowly gripping us and most of us were dabbling with Orkut on the social front. A lot of water has passed since then. Many may not have imagined that a social network would be of such importance in our professional lives. India is LinkedIn’s second largest market after US and still one of the fastest growing one. While Nishant did not reveal any new figures, LinkedIn had announced over 20 million Indian members earlier in May. While it is a sizeable population, the company now aspires to make every professional member active to see an increase in the member base. “The challenge is how to get new people quickly rammed up on all the additional things that LinkedIn has to offer. So in terms of consumers, member understanding our sole proposition continues to be a focus area and so we engage in consumer education. This is something we will continue to work on,“ he adds.

LinkedIn app launched for Nokia’s budget series

India saw a similar maturing of the market module as the US. It followed the same trajectory in which people are moving from simply creating professional profile to using it for jobs and further. In fact, India is the only country outside the US which has shown tremendous growth for LinkedIn. So, are there any specific plans for the Indian audience? Nishant reveals, ”On the consumer side, we will continue to obviously make sure that we provide value to our member base both in terms of adding new members and  more importantly adding to the growth of the existing members. The features that we offer will have a bit more of the Indian flavour. On the business point, we continue to see growth from strength to strength in both marketing solutions set and talent solution set.” Although he didn’t exactly reveal any specific plans or announcements apart from adding the Indian flavour, the company plans to evaluate on initiatives for students. And possibly, this is one of the reasons why LinkedIn wants to reach the budget segment of India.

So, are Indian companies ready to look beyond online recruitment sites? Nishant says, “When I have conversations with large companies here in India, irrespective of which company you are talking about; we find is a very large number of their employee base is already on LinkedIn."

This brings us to the obvious question. Will companies/people adopt a premium professional social site in a price-sensitive market like India? Nishant says, “We value our members, so just having people sign up for premium for the sake of growing our business isn’t right. We aspire to do unlike some of the other sites. We don’t believe in premium module wherein we’ll give you a little bit and you have to pay more. The free LinkedIn experience is by design very rich. People can be more productive and successful even without paying. But there are “specific use” cases where these premium subscriptions creep in, especially where we need to satisfy a particular use. Our focus is on making sure every member out there is more productive. As we do that, people will realise its power. Those particular power users may need specific uses, which eventually mean that premium subscriptions will grow."

The company also plans to continue to invest in mobile platform. It will also evaluate opportunities as and when newer handsets/platforms (which have professional content) are launched in the market.