LinkedIn Identity: Use is Growing on B2B sites around the web [Infographic]

When it comes to real, authentic identity in a business context, LinkedIn is a force to be reckoned with.

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Based on data across our B2B clients, we’ve seen LinkedIn’s share of social login grow from 3% in July 2010 to 20% in January 2011.  We’re seeing increased adoption of social login on a wide range of B2B sites from financial news sites to industry organizations to software companies.

The Wall Street Journal’s Liz Gannes of AllThingsD published an article about LinkedIn’s footprint in a B2B context, stating “Indeed, people do seem to be separating their online professional identities from their personal identities more than they used to, now that the tools are available. Web users increasingly use LinkedIn to sign in to business-oriented sites.”  Some of the client data she shared, along with our latest Infographic include LinkedIn’s share of Social Logins for some notable clients including:

• Stock market news site SeekingAlpha, for which LinkedIn comprised 26.6 percent of social logins in January
• The Harvard Business Review which saw 20% of social sign-ons from LinkedIn users, and
• Industry group the Internet Advertising Bureau, with 14%

The infographic also describes the demographic and business breakdown of LinkedIn users, by age and gender but also by Job Function, Industry and Company Size.

We believe much of the increase in adoption of LinkedIn as an identity provider by users, as well as businesses, is their incorporation of social tools. Although LinkedIn has always had the professional social graph, they’ve really made some great moves over the past year especially to encourage more communication and collaboration among people using the service.LinkedIn users can share content from sites in the same way they can to Twitter or Facebook, and LinkedIn publishes shared content in a prominent feed. In a cursory review of  articles in Mashable’s Business and Marketing section, LinkedIn consistently has more direct shares from the site than Facebook, a surprising finding given how recently they have added these features.

We’re continuing to monitor these subtleties in Identity use and application of social features. Do you use LinkedIn as your identity of choice in a B2B context? Let us know, we’d love to hear about it.

Update: commentary from other news sites:

PCWorld:

Indeed, now that LinkedIn is enjoying increasing prominence as a sign-in tool among users of business sites, small and medium-sized companies should make sure they’re incorporating the professional social network as fully as they can. Here are a few suggestions:

1. Integrate
2. Participate
3. Collaborate
4. Generate

ReadWriteWeb:

“So, if you’re thinking of taking your site the way of eHow and forsaking all other logins for the one, true Facebook login, you might want to take a gander at the following graphic and see where your visitors lie. Maybe you should be working on that LinkedIn presence a bit more and Facebook a bit less.”

SocialTimes:

“Across Gigya customers, BB sites with significant LinkedIn registration include MBA-Exchange.com, Seeking Alpha, Harvard Business Review and the Internet Advertising Bureau. Other large sites which are not strictly B2B, but have a significant amount of LinkedIn connections using Gigya’s platform, are Answers.com,Ask.com and Reuters.”