According to Globe and Mail networking site LinkedIn Corp. will announce this week it now has more than two million Canadian members on its site – almost double what it was just one year ago, making it one of its fastest-growing markets among the 200 countries it has members.
The Mountain View, Calif.-based company, which is geared to connecting professionals online, also plans to open an office and hire staff in Canada to meet that burgeoning demand.
Canadians have long been known as one of the world’s busiest users of social networking websites. It’s not just Facebook and Twitter – a growing number are networking for business and career reasons.
An educated work force and robust economy are two factors luring the company. But so is Canada’s high rates of social media usage.
“We look at a range of factors when we go into a country – including our penetration, how many professionals there are and also the overall economic opportunity. And in all of those measures, Canada scored really high,” Arvind Rajan, LinkedIn’s vice-president of international operations, said in a telephone interview.
“To be honest, when we looked [at] Canada in depth, the only question was, why weren’t we there earlier?”
LinkedIn is a private company that began in 2003 and now has 500 employees. The site connects people in the workplace, and job seekers with recruiters. It earns money through subscriptions, advertising and recruiting and says it’s been profitable since 2007.
Almost eight in 10 Canadians use social media at least once a month, according to Forrester Research, making them some of the most active users in the world. It lists Facebook as “by far” the most popular social networking site. ComScore lists Canada as the world’s most actively engaged country in social media.
