Need to reach a
particular industry? You're in luck if you are looking for people in
tech-related industries and would like to mine LinkedIn's professional
network for the right audience targets.
IT
& Services is the top industry for Asia Pacific LinkedIn members,
while Telecommunications, Computer Software, Semiconductors and Internet also appear.
Financial
Services professionals are also easily reached through the LinkedIn
network, according to the table below. The other industries in the top five regionally are
Oil & Energy and Hospitality, but are likely highly represented in
other countries in the region, rather than those shown.
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.
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| 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.
