Tech companies predominate in Asia Pacific LinkedIn members' mindshare

IBM, HP, Accenture, Google, Tata Consultancy Services. These are the top five companies that LinkedIn says its 50 million-plus members in Asia Pacific follow, and all of them are international tech companies.

Source: LinkedIn

The story differs in different countries. Google is in the top three in Singapore, Australia, Hong Kong and Japan, but not even in the list for India, Indonesia, Malaysia, or New Zealand. LinkedIn observes that many 'home-grown' companies or those with a significant market presence also have strong local followings. These include Petronas (Malaysia), Rio Tinto (Australia), Standard Chartered Bank (Singapore), Cathay Pacific (Hong Kong) and DeNA (Japan).

Thought leader and consumer darling Apple is, strangely enough, not in the regional top five list, nor Facebook, which you might reasonably believe to be one of the social platforms which many people use today. Apple does rank 4th in Singapore and Japan and 5th in Hong Kong, but that's it. Facebook does not even make it to the list by country.

LinkedIn does mention that it has helped clients across the region "reach out and engage with a broader audience". These clients include Standard Chartered Bank, AirAsia, SingPost, Lenovo, University of Queensland and Van Heusen. It's possible that such campaigns have helped put certain brands into LinkedIn members' mindshare beyond the ones most likely to be there - certainly Standard Chartered Bank is in the top five in Singapore and Hong Kong, and AirAsia in Malaysia. 

LinkedIn could well be a good channel for reaching out to targeted audience segments, especially if your brand makes it to the top in terms of companies that LinkedIn members want to follow. With 50 million-plus users already in the Asia Pacific region, reaching the people you want to will not take long.