Microsoft Buys Linkedin What Does This Mean For You?

So Microsoft has just bought Linkedin for $26.2 billion, when i first heard this i felt a little dismayed as I really like the Linkedin platform. As i started to digest the idea a world of possibility and positives opened up. Now Linkedin had 45 Billion page views last quarter, has 2 million paid subscribers, 60% of traffic is on mobile that’s some reach.

What Did Microsoft Buy?

433 million users that’s what Microsoft bought all that data, this is a very very smart move on their part. Think of Facebook with its huge user base, think social selling and now Microsoft has all these ‘business’ folks in what is a much cleaner data set [than Facebook] of real users. 2015 revenue was $2.9 billion not bad.
Check the 2 mission statements. For LinkedIn; to connect the world’s professionals to make them more productive and successful, and for Microsoft; to empower every individual and organization in the world to achieve more.

Search SEO / SEM –> BING

Or is that Catch’ING’ $$$$$, so we could see linkedin profiles showing up in Bing search results remember authority rank via G+ over on Google which basically failed to take off? Well BING has your Linkedin Profile now think about it.
Recommend you build inbound links to your profile and to your posts, build the trust asap.

Leverage ; Profiles Popping up in Office & More

So what does this mean? Linkedin profiles integrated into Microsoft office, in Word if you reference someone that data can come from Linkedin profile. If you are researching a topic your content may come up inside office news feed. Think Powerpoint to Slideshare direct
Lynda training directly available. Microsoft CRM all that info available in the sales cycle at your fingertips, this is a gamechanger for inside access to the Linkedin data feed.

Imagine Skype video chat inside Linkedin wow!

Reach –> 1 Billion Users Soon

Sub 500 million users now i see this growing fast.
Think about the increased reach Outlook.com 400 million users, 1.2 Billion Microsoft Office users
So can Microsoft double current Linkedin members? you bet how long we will see.

Action Items?

Make sure your profile is solid

• leverage keywords
• use a few keywords in image photo
• refine your message
• link to your profile from the web

Publish Content

• up the ante using Pulse to publish content, more activity will get you better results
• think about building authority and rank
• sponsored updates
• leverage video

At the end of the day time will tell what happens, consolidation will continue this is a massive win for Microsoft, what do you think of all this? let us know 🙂