Special Bulletin February 2012
I have been working extensively with LinkedIn advertising and one thing that really bugs me is why can't the folks from Mountain View, California, learn some basic geography? LinkedIn has almost 9 million UK members who can be reached by targeted advertising which is a massive market to tap into, if only it could be done accurately.
If I want to target these members by UK geography would I choose ‘County' or ‘Post Code' or some sensible geographic breakdown you and I might understand? You'd think so but no!
LinkedIn has determined that the UK is make up of ‘states' and these include some centres of population such as the market town of ‘Tonbridge' (population 30,000) and ‘Twickenham' but not Liverpool, the UK's fourth largest city! The countries of Wales and Northern Ireland are also nowhere to be seen!
If you're running a campaign to target the north of England you may reasonably want to include Hull, Bradford and Huddersfield, as well as Stockport, Preston, Bolton and Blackpool in the north-west or perhaps Sunderland and Middlesbrough in the north-east. Sorry, no can do, you'll have to compromise with selecting the cities of Leeds, Manchester and Newcastle.
The Midlands fares no better with residents of Stoke, Wolverhampton, Dudley, Walsall, West Bromwich and Derby being non-existent in the world of LinkedIn!
Finally, most of East Anglia ceases to exist. All residents of Peterborough, Norwich and Ipswich are deemed irrelevant to LinkedIn, which favours Cambridge and Cheltenham only.
I wouldn't mind this geographic blunder if LinkedIn didn't have an office in London, albeit their MD Ariel Eckstein is from Mexico. They must be losing a lot of money in geographically-targeted advertising outside the south east of England!
I just wonder if any of those LinkedIn social media experts will pick up on this posting and respond? I'll keep all readers posted.
