LinkedIn has become the latest social network company to try its hand at mobile advertising. 

In the conference call with analysts to discuss its fourth quarter earnings, LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner said the company is going to start running advertising test in the mobile environment. While there has been a lot of talk about social networking giant Facebook introducing mobile advertising, LinkedIn could potentially have an easier time with a mobile advertising strategy because of how its members use the network.

?Because LinkedIn is about commerce in the sense that members are shopping for jobs or potential job candidates, the orientation is very much different than on Facebook, which is much more personal,? said Noah Elkin, principal analyst at eMarketer, New York.

?Members could potentially be more open to advertising on LinkedIn in mobile especially if the ads are relevant to the kinds of activity people are undertaking on LinkedIn,? he said. ?This would be a good place for employers to advertise the jobs they are looking to fill.

?LinkedIn could potentially be a decent sized player when it comes to advertising in mobile. It comes down to where the usage is coming from and how that balances out.?

Expanding use 
LinkedIn has a mobile site as well as mobile apps for iOS and Android.

One of the interesting points made by Mr. Weiner during last week?s conference call with analysts is that mobile is not cannibalizing its other efforts and is, instead, expanding use.

For example, those who have purchased a subscription are able to get more value out of their paid products by using mobile to access the platform.

?We've noticed that people who used LinkedIn mobile applications are actually increasing the number of connections that they have on the network and that increased connection density drives greater engagement because you get a better experience, more constant greater liquidity,? Mr. Weiner said.

In comparison, Facebook said in the recent filing for its initial public offering that growing mobile use is cannibalizing desktop use. In fact, this is one of the reasons the company is looking to monetize mobile through advertising because, as less use takes place in desktop, the less money Facebook makes from advertising, which currently provides the lion?s share of its revenue.

A targeted audience
In general, consumers go to LinkedIn for different reasons than they go to Facebook, with LinkedIn offering a more targeted, business oriented use and Facebook offering more personal use.

However, it is exactly because of LinkedIn?s more targeted use that mobile advertising makes sense for the brand.

?If you go to any conference and watch the attendees, you?ll see a large group of executives of all ages who glance at their smartphones more often than a teenager,? said Dave Martin, senior vice president at agency Ignited, El Segundo, CA.

?And as traditional networking has turned into social networking, LinkedIn is playing a bigger and bigger part in what this audience does when it?s on the road," he said.

In addition to appealing to business-to-business advertisers, a LinkedIn mobile advertising solution could attract local advertisers interested in advertising to C-level executives who are visiting a city on business or target attendees of conference.

?By introducing a mobile layer to their ad platform, LinkedIn is very smart to get in front of what will surely be an explosion of local advertising in the next two years,? Mr. Martin said. ?In combination with the other targeting capabilities, mobile is going to be another great touch point for national and local advertisers to reach an influential and affluent enterprise audience.?

There might also be an opportunity for the luxury market to reach an audience via mobile ads in LinkedIn as its members tend to have a high net worth, per Mr. Elkin.

LinkedIn reported that mobile visits account for more than 15 percent of total unique member visits during the fourth quarter and that mobile is the fastest growing service on LinkedIn. Additionally, it said that mobile page views grew 350 percent on year over year basis, with mobile accounting for 16 percent of member page views.

"I think mobile advertising makes sense as it does for any social network with a growing user base, especially where that user base is growing on mobile,? Mr. Elkin said.

?LinkedIn has taken steps to capture that demand by making their Web site HTML5 compatible,? he said.

?To the extent that they are seeing growing uptake from users on the apps and trying to monetize the apps, it makes sense.?

Final Take
Chantal Tode is associate editor on Mobile Marketer, New York