Elevate, LinkedIn’s new paid app, makes starting business conversations easier

April 27, 2015: LinkedIn continues to make huge strides in the business-oriented side of social networking.  LinkedIn already has 347 million users worldwide and a slew of subgroups such as LinkedIn Pulse and LinkedIn Job Search.  Last week, LinkedIn bought Lynda.com, an online education and training powerhouse. Elevate — a new paid smart phone app (also accessible on desktops) — is intended to take LinkedIn to the next level.

The app allows companies and employees to curate content, share this content on social channels, and measure the impact.  It combines algorithmic recommendations from LinkedIn Pulse and Newsle, as well as human content curation, to arm employees with a complete stream of pertinent content they can share. Elevate is equipped with intelligent scheduling capabilities that ensure that this content will be shared when a user’s network is most active.  With cutting-edge, forward thinking analytics, Elevate allows for employees and companies to see how many times their content has been liked, shared, re-shared, commented on, and how many people it reached.

Furthermore, LinkedIn will allow its users to gain more in-depth data, such as profile views and requests to connect, that follow from their content sharing. Companies using the app will be privy to the same data — along with many more capabilities, such as job views and Company Page followers — plus other results that impact the bottom line such as hires, leads, and sales.

LinkedIn Elevate was tested in a handful of companies, including Adobe, Quintiles, and Unilever.  Six times more data was shared by employees in the time period when the test was being administered.  The results were striking: Quintiles employees using the app received four times more profile views and two times more connections.  They also accounted for four times more company page views, two times more company page followers, and six times more job views.  Employees from Adobe who participated in the test drove 80% more job views than they did in previous months.

All in all, Elevate allows LinkedIn users to more easily start social conversations.  The app allows users to reach huge, relevant audiences, as well as to drive meaningful business results.  As of right now, Elevate is only available through invitation.  But by the third quarter of 2015, LinkedIn Elevate will be available to the public for purchase.