LinkedIn to Enhance Free Services to Win Paid Subscribers

Professional social networking site LinkedIn said it has turned the corner on profitability this month, largely due to its premium services. Under those programs, which have been embraced by executive recruiters, investment bankers and management consultants, subscribers pay between $60 and $2,000 a year for unlimited searches of the LinkedIn Network, which are not limited to first-degree contacts, as regular users are.

With so much information available freely online, LinkedIn offers a competitive edge for people who base their business on finding the right people to do things for them, or finding people to tell them things their competitors don’t know, Konstantin Guericke, VP marketing at LinkedIn, told ClickZ News.

Where last year’s focus was on adding high-value services to build up subscribers, this year LinkedIn will focus on adding more features to benefit its non-paying users, who it hopes to keep around long enough to convert to paying customers, Guericke said.

Some examples include improved search features for members and non-members, increased presence of LinkedIn profiles in major search engine results, and tools to re-connect with past co-workers and classmates.