LinkedIn Stats For 2020

Originally founded in 2002, LinkedIn is a unique social networking platform that focuses on professionalism and business. While other sites are centered on uniting friends and family, LinkedIn is all about creating industry connections.

It’s a place for working professionals to upload their resumes, network, search for job opportunities, and ultimately advance their careers. With so many employers using the flexibility of LinkedIn to fill open positions, it’s a must-have service for anyone working in the modern age.

LinkedIn has evolved significantly since its early days as a simple social network. Whether you’re a freelance digital marketer, working for a Fortune 500 company, or you’re the owner of a growing small business, LinkedIn is a platform that can help you reach your goals. Here are some impressive LinkedIn statistics that you need to know. For the sake of simplicity, we’ve broken the information down by category.

LinkedIn History and Company Facts

1. LinkedIn officially opened its digital doors in 2003.

LinkedIn, as a company, was officially formed in 2002. However, it was founded on December, 28th, 2002. The platform itself wasn’t opened up to the public until several months later. At launch, LinkedIn only had approximately 10 members.

These included many of the founders and original programmers. LinkedIn was created by a relatively large group of people. Some notable figures include Reid Hoffman and Eric Ly. Other founding members include original team members from PayPal.

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2. Premium memberships started in 2005.

LinkedIn has many different revenue streams. One of the most lucrative is its paid subscriptions, which launched in 2005. While a basic account does not cost a dime, premium accounts offer many exclusive features. For job-seekers, a paid account can be used to gain more access to recruiters and companies.

The platform also serves larger companies and recruiters. The tools available to paid users are much more in-depth and make it easy to take advantage of all the platform has to offer. Currently, there are a variety of price points available based on the needs of the user.

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3. LinkedIn currently Has 33 offices around the globe. After its launch, LinkedIn grew rapidly as a company. The main headquarters are located in Sunnyvale, California. However, several additional offices were opened up across the United States to meet with the growing user base. Some locations include Omaha, Nebraska and New York City.

Global offices were also opened. They are located in London, Madrid, India, Dubai, and more.

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4. The platform is available in 24 different languages. With its massive international presence, LinkedIn is available in 24 different languages. The site is translated by local teams, ensuring that it’s appropriate for each region.

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5. LinkedIn is owned by Microsoft. This social media platform has gone through several ownership changes. After several years of running as a private company, it became a publicly traded entity in 2011. That only lasted for approximately 5 years. In 2016, Microsoft bought LinkedIn for a staggering 27 billion dollars! With the purchase, LinkedIn was removed from the stock exchange and became a subsidiary of Microsoft.

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6. LinkedIn has acquired several small companies and patents.

LinkedIn is not just a simple networking site. There are tons of features that users can take advantage of every day. This includes global news feeds about current events and educational courses to improve your job outlook.

To make all of those features possible, LinkedIn acquired many small companies. Some of the biggest acquisitions were Lynda.com, which was valued at 1.5 billion dollars, and the newsreader pulse, which cost Linked in 90 million dollars.

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7. Roughly 14,000 people work for LinkedIn.

Despite its humble beginnings, LinkedIn is a big employer across the globe. Only a year after launch, the company only had about 12 employers. However, the opening of international offices and the natural evolution of the platform lead to more job creation.

Today, the company employees about 14,000 employees. That figure doesn’t include any part-time workers or contractors.

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8. LinkedIn’s revenue surpassed 5 billion dollars in 2018

LinkedIn has been experiencing significant growth in the last couple of years. In 2017, the company received about 2.2 billion dollars in revenue alone. That’s already impressive earnings. However, LinkedIn managed to reach 5.3 billion dollars of revenue in 2018! By the end of the 2019 fiscal year, it’s reported that the platform earned a staggering 6.8 billion dollars!

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Who Uses LinkedIn?

9. LinkedIn gained 100,000 users after its first year alone.

LinkedIn grew pretty rapidly after launch. After just a year, the platform had over 100,000 users. A year after that, over 1.6 million people were using the service.

The most significant jump in numbers LinkedIn experienced occur in 2008. By the end of the fiscal year, the company encountered a 962.5 percent increase in users, growing the tally to 17 million.

After about a decade of operation in 2013, LinkedIn had amassed a user base of 277 million. As you can see, this platform has only gotten better with time. More and more users are signing up for the service, leading to even more growth.

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10. About a fifth of all professionals used LinkedIn in 2011.

LinkedIn is open to everyone, regardless of position. The platform markets itself towards a wide range of workers. However, it has become a platform geared towards professionals. These are workers who earn a living doing a specific professional job, such as business owners, accountants, and more.

In 2011, there were about 660 million workers classified as “professionals.” About a fifth of them were using LinkedIn. That figure was from almost a decade ago, so it’s projected that even more professionals are actively using LinkedIn today.

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11. More than half of all companies had LinkedIn pages in 2013.

According to LinkedIn’s own findings, about half of all registered companies had dedicated pages. The unique thing about the platform is that company pages are automatically created anytime a user posts experience from the company. This also happens if the company posts job opening.

The latest figures LinkedIn has published regarding company pages shows that there are over 19 million.

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12. A vast majority of Fortune 500 companies take advantage of LinkedIn

When it comes to the most successful companies in the world, LinkedIn is a very beneficial platform. Thanks to a large number of professionals using the service, these big-name corporations can easily find new employees.

About 92 percent of all Fortune 500 companies have a presence on LinkedIn. LinkedIn shares this figure with Facebook. But, it beats out YouTube and Twitter.

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13. Over three-quarters of all recruiters use LinkedIn to fill positions.

Recruiters utilize the LinkedIn platform to find qualified professionals for large companies. The number of recruiters on LinkedIn has decreased a bit in the last couple of years. However, a large majority of them still use the premium service.

About 77 percent of all recruiters are on LinkedIn, making it a great place to find job opportunities or be found.

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14. Roughly a third of LinkedIn’s users are in upper management positions.

In 2019, LinkedIn had very impressive figures when it comes to upper management members. Roughly 90 million people on the site are senior-level employees. 65 million are in a position where they are responsible for making important decisions. This is followed by another 6 million members who make decisions regarding IT.

Approximately 10 million members are C-level executives, while 40 million members have some type of influence in their job. All combined, these members make up a third of LinkedIn’s user base.

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15. Almost half of all members earn at least $75,000 a year.

About 45 percent of the user base reports income earnings at $75,000 a year or more. The next bracket below that is for those earning between $50,000 and $74,999 per year. Those members make up 24 percent of all LinkedIn users.

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16. A third of all millionaires use LinkedIn.

As of 2019, there are about 47 million millionaires in the world. Studies showed that a third of them use LinkedIn. This is not a surprising figure considering that the platform is home to professionals holding upper-level positions.

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17. Approximately 172,000 new users register on LinkedIn every day.

According to LinkedIn, the platform gets about 172,800 new members every single day. That amounts to more than 62 million users a year.

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18. There are over 660 million members on LinkedIn.

As of 2019, LinkedIn has 660 million users. They come from more than 200 countries across the world.

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19. About half of those members are active every month.

LinkedIn is a unique social network in the fact that users don’t have to use it every day. With that said, there are several great features that members can utilize in their day-to-day lives. Thanks to those features, LinkedIn has about 303 million active users a month. About 40 percent of those people use the site every single day.

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20. Most LinkedIn members don’t live in the United States.

Contrary to popular belief, LinkedIn isn’t just for American users. About 70 percent of the user population doesn’t live in the United States. The platform has great success overseas. Hundreds of millions of users are located in Asia and throughout Europe.

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21. The second-largest market for LinkedIn is India.

The second-largest market for LinkedIn is India. The country boasts about 53 million users. Following India is China, with over 44 million registered users.

The top spot for LinkedIn is still the United States. The American user base is equal to the second, third, fourth, and fifth markets combined.

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22. Over a quarter of the U.S. population use LinkedIn.

According to research performed in 2019, 27 percent of the United States population is on LinkedIn. This is a huge difference compared to other social media platforms like Youtube or Facebook. However, it is a slight increase from previous years.

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23. Half of all Americans with college degrees are on LinkedIn.

Half of all college graduates use LinkedIn to find jobs. About 22 percent of LinkedIn users have some type of college experience. The figures related to those who only have a high school diploma or less is only about 9 percent.

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24. There are over 87 million Millenials on LinkedIn.

Millennials grew up in the age of social media, so it’s no surprise that there are 87 million on LinkedIn. According to LinkedIn, about 11 million Millenials are in higher positions that require decision making. Considering the earlier upper-level management figures from earlier, about 16 percent of that group are millennials.

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25. About 44 percent of the LinkedIn user base are women.

For most social media platforms, there is a slightly higher male population. The same goes for LinkedIn. About 44 percent of all users are female.

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About LinkedIn User Habits

26. Only 39 percent of LinkedIn users pay for subscriptions.

Currently, LinkedIn offers four different premium plans. When new users register, they have the opportunity to enroll in one of these plans and pay a subscription fee. Existing users can also upgrade their accounts at any time.

About 39 percent of all users pay for a premium account.

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27. The average time on the site is only 17 minutes a month.

So how much time do people spend on LinkedIn? For most, it’s only 17 minutes a month. The average social media user spends up to 2 and a half hours a day on various platforms. So, LinkedIn is quite low compared to the likes of Facebook or Twitter.

However, this is to be expected, as LinkedIn is not a place to share your every activity. It’s a professional setting and most users will only communicate with other users to network.

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28. People seeking jobs average up to 30 minutes per day on LinkedIn.

Job seekers, on the other hand, spend up to half an hour a day on the platform. LinkedIn has some powerful tools to help users identify available positions and learn more about potential companies. Thus, it’s a great place to find new jobs.

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29. Most people on LinkedIn also use other platforms.

According to research data, a large majority of users are active on other social media platforms. About 94 percent use Youtube while 90 percent are on Facebook.

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LinkedIn Profile Info

30. About a quarter of all users have between 500 and 999 connections.

One unique feature of LinkedIn is connections. Members can connect with others who share company information or education. Connected members can communicate and view each other’s profiles.

About 27 percent of all users have between 500 and 999 connections. A slightly larger group, about 28 percent, has between 0 and 300 connections.

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31. Recruiters and staffing members have, on average, 702 connections.

Recruiters and those who belong to staffing groups are some of the most-connected members on LinkedIn. Considering the fact that they are on the platform to find potential employees, it’s not surprising. On average, these members have about 702 connections.

Venture capitalists are another connected group. They have about 423 connections on average. This is followed by those in Human Resources, who have about 380 connections.

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32. The highest connection count is over 160,000.

At one point, the person with the most connections had over 160,000. This feat was accomplished by Steve Burda, a Ukraine-American financial analyst.

LinkedIn has since made some changes to the connection system. Not only did the company limit the connection count to 30,000, but the weight of connections changed as well.

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33. Bill Gates is very popular on LinkedIn.

The following system is now considered to be more important than connections. Members can message their followers without having to establish a connection, which makes it easier to reach a broader audience.

The person with the most followers is Microsoft founder Bill Gates. He currently has over 20 million followers on the platform.

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34. The “Who’s Viewed Your Profile” feature is very popular.

The feature that users love most is “Who’s Viewed Your Profile.” It’s the favorite of about 76 percent of all users. Essentially, it allows members to create connections by getting notified anytime a potential employee or networker takes a look at a profile.

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35. 98 percent of all users join a group.

LinkedIn is home to a wide range of groups. These groups allow a large number of users to interact and network in a controlled space. The groups can cover many different topics. However, most are focused on a particular profession or industry. It’s a place for members to share their thoughts while also creating connections.

The group feature is quite popular. Only 2 percent of members aren’t part of a group.

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Content and Marketing on LinkedIn

36. 91 percent of marketing executives use LinkedIn to find content.

LinkedIn ranks much higher than other social media platforms when it comes to sources of high-quality content for marketing executives. Twitter is only used by about 29 percent of executives while 27 percent use Facebook.

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37. B2B marketers rely on LinkedIn a lot.

Roughly 97 percent of all business-to-business marketers take advantage of LinkedIn to distribute their content. Marketers use it significantly more than other platforms due to the direct access to business owners and those who hold high-level positions at companies.

About 78 percent of B2B marketers view LinkedIn as the most effective social media platform. 89 percent of marketers include the platform in their marketing mix. In recent years, Instagram has gained some traction among B2B marketers. This has lead to a slight decrease in figures for LinkedIn. However, that decrease is quite small considering the platform’s lead. The drop is not significant enough to affect LinkedIn’s place in the digital marketing scene.

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38. About 62 percent of B2B marketers see success.

When it comes to generating leads, LinkedIn is the prime platform for B2B marketers. 62 percent of all marketers that reported using LinkedIn have said that they got leads. That’s much higher than platforms like Instagram.

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39. 80 percent of all B2B leads come from LinkedIn.

Social media has become a very powerful tool for B2B marketing. While other platforms can provide some results, nothing compares to LinkedIn. The platform is responsible for nearly 80 percent of all leads. For this, marketers have the high conversion rates and access to millions of decision-makers to thank.

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40. LinkedIn users created millions of posts in 2016.

LinkedIn users can create and publish unique content that’s pushed to millions of users. This feature has grown quite a bit since its launch. In 2014, only 1,000 articles were created a month.

In 2016, that figure was at 130,000. Millions of pieces of unique content are created every year, making it a great source for marketing executives.

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41. Over a third of all users take advantage of the news feature.

Thanks to LinkedIn’s acquisitions, news has become a big feature on the platform. The active news feed displays information about important events in the business world. About 36 percent of all users rely on the feed to get the latest news every day.

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42. Only 3 million LinkedIn users share content.

Despite the impressive content numbers at LinkedIn, most of that work stays within the platform. Only 3 million users are sharing the content they view. That’s less than a percent of the user base.

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43. LinkedIn’s conversion rate is about 2.74 percent.

When it comes to business conversion rates, LinkedIn is sitting pretty at 2.74 percent. That’s much higher than Twitter and Facebook combined. While the content is not being shared off the platform, businesses can still see great success with their content on LinkedIn.

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44. About a quarter of all social media marketers use LinkedIn.

LinkedIn has a network ad system. Marketers can pay for ad space directly on LinkedIn, reaching their target audience directly. About 26 percent of all social media marketers use the platform. While it’s not as high of a figure as those that use Facebook, that 26 percent has contributed to LinkedIn’s massive growth in recent years.

Thanks to the platform’s growing numbers, many industry experts believe that LinkedIn’s role in social media marketing will only get bigger. The platform connects businesses and working professionals, opening up opportunities for B2B companies quite a bit.

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45. More than half of marketers viewed LinkedIn Ads positively.

Of the marketers that use LinkedIn’s ad network, 58 percent said it had a high return on investment. Many thought that the platform’s ad network provided some of the best value around.

LinkedIn is considered to have one of the best ROI of any social media platform. It’s about equal to that of Facebook but higher than Twitter and YouTube.

Thanks to the success that marketers have experienced with LinkedIn, about 42 percent plan on increasing their ad budget with the platform. That’s a significantly higher figure than marketers who plan on decreasing their budget, which is at about 11 percent. So, expect to see even more revenue from LinkedIn.

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Extra Facts

46. There are millions of open positions on LinkedIn.

LinkedIn is a great place for job-seekers to find new opportunities. There are about 20 million open job positions on LinkedIn this year. Approximately 3 million new positions are posted every single month!

The great thing about LinkedIn is that job-seekers can connect to potential employers directly. Thanks to the profile features and digital resume, employers and recruiters have an easier time figuring out if a job-seeker is qualified as well.

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47. LinkedIn is one of the most popular sites in the world.

How popular is LinkedIn? This platform is accessed by hundreds of millions of people a year. While it’s not used as often as other social media sites, that doesn’t mean that people aren’t visiting the site.

According to several studies and traffic data, LinkedIn is the 25th most popular site on the Internet!

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48. More than half of users access LinkedIn on mobile devices.

While LinkedIn is a business-focused platform, users are flocking to their smartphone to access the site on the go. More than half of the traffic that LinkedIn receives comes from smartphone and tablets.

The LinkedIn website is accessible on most mobile browsers. Plus, the company has a dedicated application that can be downloaded from most app stores. The app is particularly useful for job-seekers. Not only can users view open positions from anywhere, but they can set alerts to notify them of when positions become available. Group features and communication systems work on the app as well.

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Conclusion

LinkedIn has revolutionized the way that people connect on a professional level. In the past, people were forced to send in resumes and apply for jobs internally. While all of those methods still exist, LinkedIn has simplified the process quite a bit.

Thanks to the bevy of content features, LinkedIn has proved to be useful for every industry. B2B marketers have experienced great success on the site to create leads, generate sales, and attract new clients.

No matter how you choose to use LinkedIn, it’s worth your attention. You can visit LinkedIn today to create an account for free. Or, invest in a paid plan to make the most out of the platform.

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