Spotlight on Social: BranchOut

As far as social media and business networking go, LinkedIn have pretty much dominated the market for years, continuing to grow with no other network coming close to compete with it. That was until two years ago when an app called BranchOut was released exclusively for Facebook.

LinkedIn is still the top network for professionals with 150 million registered users, 125 million more users than BranchOut’s 25 million. But BranchOut is growing rapidly. 25 million might not sound like a lot, but considering the company has only been going for 2 years, its growth has been incredibly strong and is similar to the growth seen at Instagram, the photo sharing app that was bought by Facebook for $1 billion two weeks ago.

Not only is its growth a threat to LinkedIn, but another huge benefit for BranchOut, is its partnership with Facebook. Initially thought of by industry experts as a negative and making it too limited, strictly using Facebook for the app now looks to play into its advantage, with the huge reach and greater exposure that Facebook has to offer with 850 million users.

We’ll have to wait and see how it goes for BranchOut, but the future is looking good and the CEO Rick Martini is ambitious about making this app “the” place to have a professional profile. He told Insider Magazine, “LinkedIn is great for 10% of the workforce. But we can provide professional profiles to the other 90% on Facebook”.

LinkedIn and BranchOut will continue to attract users because they can help to:

– Re-establish previous connections with clients & past colleagues

– Discover new connections and find referrals

– Share and request recommendations

If you are interested in integrating your social media campaigns with your business, contact Innermedia.