LinkedIn User Segmentation

[Tom H. C. Anderson - Anderson Analytics, LLC]

I thought the group might be interested in a recent project we did with LinkedIn. It was a two phase project, first data mining and link analysis, then primary survey research, some text analytics, and a user segmentation.

We found four segments on LinkedIn. If you want to try our typing tool you can access it here: http://www.andersonanalytics.com/litype/

I’d be curious to hear if you agree with whichever type you are predicted as being closest to?

In case you have further interest we have a press release on our site, here: http://www.andersonanalytics.com/index.php?mact=News,cntnt01,detail...

[Alan S. Michaels]

Hello Tom,

I took your test and was assigned to the "Savvy Networker" segment - although I view myself in a fifth segment: "Those Who Can Just Barely Figure It Out When Given Enough Time" segment.

Cheers,
Alan

[August Jackson]

I was surprised that the survey did not ask me how many connections I had or how long I've been on LinkedIn. The survey categorized me as a "LinkedIn late adopter." I found this odd considering I joined LinkedIn as early as 2002 (maybe earlier-- joined when you still had to be invited) and have over 300 connections.

I went back and re-took the survey to check more boxes on questions about opportunities/information being sought and changed my employment situation to indicate that I was open for opportunities. With these changes I was re-categorized as a Savvy Networker. To my mind I would think alignment of a person's networking intentions with the profile options they've selected on LinkedIn would be a determinant of who is a savvy networker and who is a neophyte (perhaps harder to test in a simple analytical framework). I have to think number of connections would account for something in this framework.

Granted, more connections does not always equate to savvy. I believe a targeted approach to seeing out new connections (as well as being somewhat circumspect in accepting new connections from others) is much more savvy than the shotgun approach.