It’s ON! There are tons of articles, blogs and twitterers screaming how there’s going to be a “showdown” between LinkedIn and The Wall Street Journal as the latter creates the ultimate weapon in social media. That’s right, they’ve made a “LinkedIn Killer”
The widespread reports started with a TechCrunch article reporting that a concept was on the table. From there the report grew legs.
Will it work? Nope. It’s all hype. To be fair, LinkedIn isn’t positioned at the top of the social networking/media category, but I don’t think it expects to given its niche. When it comes to Business Social Networking, however, it dominates. In fact, there’s no other service. Is it possible it could get ousted? Of course. Is it likely? Not unless those in charge of the service are asleep.
MarketingPilgrim makes a few good points. NewsCorp hasn’t done very well with MySpace, which owned Social Networking when it was purchased. If they can’t hold onto a brand category throne, what makes them think they can dethrone LinkedIn from the Business Social Networking category? Perhaps its because the WSJ is about business? Likely, but that’s not sound brand thinking. The MarketingPilgrim article continues that The Journal hasn’t done a very good job of getting its online readership to use its existing profile/connections portal.
That’s Killer…
Internally they are already calling it the “LinkedIn Killer” [TC]. Lets review the list of other “Killers” on the market: The Blackberry Storm and Palm Pre were iPhone killers and the Zune was an iPod killer. Lets be straight, if they are in that mindset, they better give up right now. In fact, the brand cemetery is littered with imitation products and there are quite a few #2 products that try try try. Who leads Red Bull (energy drinks), Gatoraid (sports drinks), Coke (cola), and McDonalds (fast food)? No one. They were the first and they’ll stay #1 mainly because of that.
You might say that the industry is in flux, but Facebook ousted MySpace by being different, not the same. MySpace ousted Friendster by being different, not the same. WSJ Connect is undoubtedly trying to be the same, as “LinkedIn Killer” indicates.
I dare you to come up with one “Killer” that was branded as such and succeeded. Even if you do know one, how long did it take you to think of it and are there any others?
What the Wall Street Journal is going to do is weaken their core brand and divert resources that should be spent researching a better way to keep ahead of the Business Daily News category that they are in charge of. They’d be better off partnering up with or purchasing LinkedIn.
Of course, this is all speculation. Nothing’s been confirmed.
More Reading:
http://www.bizjournals.com/dayton/stories/2009/07/27/daily55.html
http://inventorspot.com/articles/wall_street_journal_gunning_linkedin_30930
http://www.marketingpilgrim.com/2009/07/will-the-wall-street-journal-take-a-real-shot-at-social-media.html
Also:
22 Immutable Laws of Branding (Reis & Reis) [excerpt: http://synergynet.com/artman/publish/marketing_resources/branding_laws.shtml]
Chasing Cool (Kerner & Pressman) [http://www.chasingcoolbook.com/]
Brand Failures (Haig) [Google Books]
And just pay attention. It’ll become common sense.
Tags: Branding, LinkedIn, Wall Street Journal, WSJ Connect
You do make some good points, especially around the flawed mindset of the “killer”. However I do feel that there are some counter points to be considered too:
1) The category leaders that you highlight (Coke et. al.) do not retainer leadership simply because they were first. In fact they spend a lot of time and effort carefully managing their brand and evolving their messaging. In some cases they update their proposition.
2) I am not yet convinced that the so called “business” social network is actually a valid category. Perhaps that is part of the underlying issue leading to LinkedIN’s problems?
3) Another perspective is that the success or failure of any network (business or otherwise) is all about its reach and its users willingness to participate. Compared to Facebook, LinkedIN does not have a meaningful reach (IMO). My experience of using it has been that I would expect to find more interaction happening in a morgue than I have seen on LinkedIN – but that is of course just my experience. It felt to me that a lot of the users wanted the benefits of a social net (more business!) but without the time consuming hassle of interacting within a community.
Facebook still suffers from a perception that it is frivelous and largely for youngsters. This is totally wrong, but that does seem to be the perception. So what WSJ can bring to the party is brand credability, If it can replicate Facebooks reach and level of user participation but maintain brand credibility transfered from the newspaper then it will have established something very worth while.
But I agree with you that setting out to *JUST* kill LinkedIN is not a good starting point!
1: Correct and agreed, and now that LinkedIn has some high-level competition, they better get on their game. (PS: If you’re reading LinkedIn people, let’s talk, I can help)
2: It is definitely a category. There are folks I’m connected to on LinkedIn who wouldn’t DARE touch any other social network. Reason: LinkedIn isn’t here for fun. Where facebook is at times trying to be an internet mullet (business in the front, party in the back), LinkedIn’s perception isn’t so. If you look at the traffic results for the site, you’ll see the vast majority of it’s traffic is during business hours.
3: Actually, there are some very busy discussion forums on LinkedIn. To leverage the site properly a LinkedIn user needs to participate in these forums, or you’re simply just another login. I assure you, there is a definite engagement.
Facebook’s level of participation might also be its undoing. They’ve started jumping the shark on quite a few things (and that’s not even me saying it) and alienating some users. A social network needs to grow organically with some help from it’s owner. Could it grow faster? Definitely. Is it growing too slow or does it need micromanagement? I don’t think so.