The social networking buzz continues with stories and predictions about MySpace, Facebook and more recently Twitter.

But the ‘quiet achiever’ of the social networking world is LinkedIn.

LinkedIn was only launched in 2003 with $25m in venture capital. In its first year it only drew a few hundred thousand users but by 2005 nearly 5 million people had joined.

Now, with over 30 million users representing 150 industries LinkedIn is one of the fastest growing social networking brands around the world.

According to the latest data from comScore, LinkedIn’s US unique visitors have shot up 22% t0 7.7million, up from 6.3 million in December.  And total minutes spent on the site (’engagement’ is the new currency online!) doubled in January to 96.8 million minutes, from 47.6 million minutes in December.

But why the recent growth?

Unlike Facebook and Twitter, which are largely leisure based networks for sharing personal stories, photos etc, LinkedIn was developed as a networking tool for business professionals.  That in itself has driven interest in LinkedIn from the business world and confirms to the idea of social object theory.

LinkedIn co-founder and Chairman Reid Hoffman summed this up recently “People like to keep their work and professional lives separate from their personal lives. The functions we provide make professionals more effective. We don’t give people a way to spend their entertainment or idle time”

So its single minded focus has certainly helped it carve out a strong position as the professional social networking tool.

But, the recent surge in growth for LinkedIn has no doubt been caused by the global economic downturn and the resulting job losses. A total of 12.5 million people are now unemployed in the US, so it’s no surprise that professionals are looking to tools like LinkedIn to help.

So, will this boom in interest in LinkedIn occur here in Australia?

Australia is certainly mirroring the US with job losses (100,000 in the last 6 months alone) which will almost certainly be reflected in a massive rise in interest in LinkedIn.

As at June last year there were 440,000 LinkedIn members here in Australia.  Current data reveals that the June member base has grown to 637,000 members. That’s a 23% increase in 8 months!’

I predict continued huge growth for LinkedIn here in Australia.   Do you agree?

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