It has been announced that tech giant Microsoft is buying social networking site LinkedIn. The price? Just over $26 billion. It is expected that following the acquisition Microsoft will integrate LinkedIn into its productivity tools and vice versa. But what will all this mean for businesses and B2B marketers? Many of whom who use LinkedIn as part of their social media marketing and overall digital marketing strategy.
Microsoft to Buy LinkedIn… but what’s the reason?
Marketing is one of the most collaborative and social functions in business. This recent collaboration should simplify the process of people communicating and collaborating with the integration of productivity tools.
The acquisition could bring; document sharing, video calling, real-time text messaging, and other Office 365 and Skype for Business features to the professional social network. Microsoft’s CEO Satya Nadella said in an interview with the Wall Street Journal that “it is really the coming together of the professional cloud and the professional network”.
The integration of productivity tools could potentially see LinkedIn become the ultimate professional network, especially with tools such as Office 365. Microsoft’s acquisition of LinkedIn reinforces what many have known for a long time; work is social. In today’s tech filled world, it has become easier than ever to network and collaborate with colleagues and contacts without being face to face.
Currently, LinkedIn is used by 433 million professionals to share content, network for jobs and talk to other like-minded professionals. If Microsoft add more features such as document sharing and video calling it could transform the social platform. LinkedIn could become a tool that is vital to businesses and gives the social media platform the edge on its competitors.
While it is still very early days in the acquisition, it is expected that Microsoft’s purchase of LinkedIn will help B2B marketers. It should provide them with better data, targeting, more tools and improved audience engagement. It will provide businesses with all the productivity tools it needs in one place.
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