Linkedin: From Silicon Valley to mainstream business brand

Though the company possessed a high performance in-house public relations program, LinkedIn hired Atomic in late 2006 to help sharpen positioning, expand marketplace and public perception of the site and obtain more coverage about its numerous new features.

ComContext™ analysis of historical media and blog coverage of the company and other social/business networking sites sparked insights that led to a simple but powerful communications strategy that added 3 new critical ideas, and completely halted one thing that had been core to the previous program.

Over the next 6 months, the new program dramatically increased the volume of traditional media coverage and blog communications around the LinkedIn brand, increased clarity about LinkedIn's positioning within the social networking landscape and drove more coverage about how to use the site's numerous new features than ever before.

Results:

• Coverage of the LinkedIn brand increased by nearly 300% in first six months, from 128 unique articles to 407, and into outlets that had not previously covered the company
• Business coverage increased more than 400% from the starting baseline.
• Coverage of LinkedIn's features increased more than 500%, with bloggers leading the charge and more traditional outlets following.
• 72% of the coverage during the first 6 month period was positive, 26% neutral -- and only 2% negative.
• LinkedIn's positioning migrated from "size comparisons to MySpace" and narrow associations to recruiting and job seeking, to a more mainstream perception of LinkedIn as "the leader in professional business networking" and increased awareness of the caliber of the user base.
• Though a fraction of the size, the LinkedIn brand is now consistently mentioned as one of the leaders in social networking, alongside MySpace and Facebook.