Learning from LinkedIn: 7 Ways to Elevate the Member Experience

LinkedIn is a powerful platform. It is a community where most of the memberships are free, yet the company is still highly profitable. Unions, associations and other member-centric organizations can learn quite a bit from LinkedIn’s business model.

So, what is LinkedIn’s business model?  At its core, LinkedIn offers a social platform for professional networking and career development. The platform is free to use for basic features including profile creation, connecting with other professionals, and sharing content. However, LinkedIn generates revenue through premium member subscriptions, advertising, and other products and services such as online educational courses, job postings and recruiting solutions.  LinkedIn has elevated the membership experience by providing easy access to basic features while gating and automating premium benefits.

As CEO of the Union Innovation Hub, I’ve helped many union executives strategize their membership growth for future success. I’ve outlined 7 (maybe radical) ways member-centric organizations can modernize the member experience through similar strategies and tactics used by LinkedIn today.

7 Ways LinkedIn Elevates the Member Experience

1. Getting Involved is Easy and Free

It costs nothing to set up and populate your LinkedIn profile. This provides LinkedIn with a huge benefit because it has prospects actively engaging with the system from the start.

2. Members Immediately Appreciate Benefits

As soon as your profile is set up, you can start to connect to others, find or create content, apply for jobs, and otherwise start realizing the benefits of the community. Free members are active users and help create the high level of content and group interactions that keep the premium members retained.

3. You Pay Only for What You Need

Your LinkedIn profile may be free, but if you want to generate even more value from the community you need to pay. You can choose to pay only for what you use (to list a job, advertise your services, access new connections). Getting people to use the service on an ad-hoc basis is a great way to move people along the pipeline to a paid membership which is called Premium.

4. Premium Membership Offering for Power Users

LinkedIn has a profitable premium membership for intensive users of the service. Its premium membership exploits FOMO (fear of missing out), by enabling premium members to see a full list of who has viewed their profile, and has practical benefits, such as the ability to view and connect to an unlimited number of people.

5. Automated Marketing to Attract New Premium Members

Free LinkedIn members are regularly invited to try premium membership for free (a “taster”). Many do not try it. Some do. And some of those retain their premium membership beyond the trial. This process generates a steady stream of premium members, is automated, and costs little to execute.

6. Facilitates Member-Generated Communities

LinkedIn is a great place to find and join professional communities. All content is entirely member-generated because LinkedIn is just the provider of the platform that connects people.

7. Diversifies Revenue Streams with New Product Offerings

LinkedIn Learning, LinkedIn’s online educational platform, is just one of many products that enables the business to generate income streams from its strong and engaged community.

Shifting to a Modern Membership Experience

We are not suggesting that your organization move to a free-entry model in traditional areas. However, there are lessons to be learned for traditional areas, and great opportunities to reach out to potential members in areas where we have low membership. 

We want to assist more members, and we know that with more members, we can better achieve our goals as well as theirs. Although we need revenue to function, we also need scale to succeed and have the influence and impact that our members desire. 

Consider your overall membership journey and where your current and potential members are finding value.

Ask Yourself:

1. Can we lower the cost and barrier to building a large base of prospective members? 
2. Should this initial network of workers access some benefits, even if it is the need to connect, to be a tribe and have their concern and aspirations articulated?
3. Do you provide ungated benefits to lure your prospective members in?
4. Do you organize this initial community and help create an identity and relationship with your organization?
5. What kind of benefits and offerings do you provide the casual vs. dedicated member to keep them engaged?
6. Are you able to automate touchpoints to further engage, while relieving burden on your staff?
7. For new areas, have you tried different level of membership, where fees increase based on the package of services accessed? Or, are some services an additional fee?

Most organizations are concerned about the impact of these initiatives on their existing member revenue. However, the evidence is these concerns are unfounded. It is possible to target the special offer to an area or member at a particular point in time. Where a member benefits from a collective agreement, the model can require full membership.

The approach can also help us improve engagements with traditional members. By rethinking each and every touchpoint, you’ll shift your member-centric organization into a modern business model, one that delivers increased and relevant value to all member segments at each step of their unique journey with you.

All elements of the LinkedIn model may not be directly applicable, but hopefully it challenges us to think innovatively. There are many members and workers who could benefit from joining together in our organizations. We need to improve outreach to them. Maybe it is okay to get to know each other before we buy a house together!

The Union Innovation Hub helps unions achieve growth, efficiency and impact by fast tracking progress and reducing the cost of digital and other innovation. With over 30 unions clients in Australia and New Zealand, we've guided digital transformation strategies from inception to evolution by utilizing the power of the iMIS Engagement Management System.

Contact us today to see how the Union Innovation Hub can modernize the way your staff, organizers and members work together.

This article was originally published by the Union Innovation Hub in the RISE! Whitepaper “Empowering Australian workers through the Collective Spirit & Collaborative Energy of Unions”, authored by Belinda Moore and Chris Walton. The content has been adapted.