Over the last year, unique visitors have mostly leveled off for social media giant LinkedIn. While some may attribute this to a general industry slump (Twitter has experienced a similar leveling off), I think it’s indicative of a broader problem. LinkedIn has seen better days, and won’t ever again experience 300% growth rates, as it did in June ’06 – June ’07.

When was the last time you saw the network do something innovative?

Stumped?

You should be.

Despite being an enormously popular service for savvy professionals, LinkedIn has mostly failed to capitalize on its popularity by rolling out a slew of “me too” features and emphasizing functionality that mostly encourages infrequent usage.

Let’s take a minute to look at a few of LinkedIn’s recent updates.

iPhone Application

About a month ago, LinkedIn finally updated what had previously been a poor excuse for an iPhone application. While the app was significantly improved, it still did not offer any features that would encourage regular use of the app. Yes, the Bump-like contact exchange feature is interesting. But frankly, I’d still rather use Bump.

Interface Redesign

This is LinkedIn’s most successful new initiative. The redesign was able to improve the site’s usability and emphasized one of LinkedIn’s most useful features – groups. That said, it places too much emphasis on the status update feature.

Which brings me to my next point.

Twitter Integration

On the surface, this seems like a good idea, right? How could you possibly do wrong by integrating with Twitter? The problem isn’t necessarily LinkedIn’s integration, it’s how LinkedIn adds zero value to the status update by mostly cloning what Twitter already does so well.

Facebook, by comparison, adds value to the status update by including features like mentions, rich media handling, and the ability to post updates longer than 140 characters.

When you get down to it, Facebook and Twitter give you reasons to update your status through their interface – LinkedIn does not.

Developer Options

This may be a case of “too little too late”.

Both Facebook and Twitter have fueled tremendous growth with their now longstanding development platforms. LinkedIn only opened theirs a couple of months ago. Why would a developer spend time building an application for LinkedIn when there’s more money to be made building apps for Twitter or Facebook?

The Business Value of LinkedIn

“It’s amazing how the only day we use LinkedIn is the day we get fired.” – Chris Brogan

Of course, if this is how you’re using LinkedIn, you’re not getting the most out of it. But have you received any business value out of the network? Has it generated anything more than marginal traffic for your website? Has it yielded quality leads for your product or service? Except for a select few, I’m guessing it hasn’t.

As a site that’s geared towards business users, if it isn’t creating opportunities to get more of it, then what’s the point?

Finally

Admittedly, the title of the post is a tad misleading. LinkedIn is certainly not dead. In fact, according to data from Compete, the professional networking site grew almost 60% in the last year.

But, a recent survey by Dynamic Logic (PDF) revealed that 60% of LinkedIn users reported using the service the same as they did 6 months ago.   By comparison, users of Twitter & Facebook reported using those respective websites more often than they did 6 months ago.

While LinkedIn might not die, it’s never going to grow much more than it already has – unless they innovate.

Where do you think LinkedIn goes from here?  Will it maintain the status quo, or find a way to innovate?

Photo Credit

Note: Major hat tip to Michael Pearsun for some important inspiration on this post.

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