LinkedIn is the world’s largest professional network with over 722 million users worldwide. As a platform focused on professional networking and career development, LinkedIn offers a unique opportunity for developers to build and distribute apps that cater to this audience.
With LinkedIn’s robust API and mobile SDKs, developers can integrate LinkedIn data and functionality into custom iOS, Android, and web apps. This allows you to tap into LinkedIn’s extensive user base and professional data to create powerful apps for networking, recruitment, sales prospecting, and more.
So in short, yes you can absolutely build an app on or for LinkedIn as a developer. LinkedIn even provides several options and resources to make building LinkedIn-enabled apps simpler.
In this 5000+ word guide, we’ll cover everything you need to know about building apps on and for LinkedIn, including:
Key Capabilities of the LinkedIn Platform
– Accessing user profiles and professional data
– Enabling social actions like sharing and messaging
– Publishing long-form posts and articles
– Managing company pages and Showcase Pages
– Targeting ads based on professional demographics and interests
– Integrating job listings and enabling job applications
– Developing collaborative plugins for Microsoft Office
Types of Apps You Can Build
– Productivity tools for sales prospecting and recruiting
– Job hunting and career management apps
– Professional social apps for networking
– Content publishing and advertising apps
– Collaborative tools for Microsoft Office
– And more…
LinkedIn’s Offerings for Developers
– APIs for LinkedIn data and functionality
– Mobile SDKs for iOS and Android
– Prebuilt solutions like Lead Gen Forms
– Publishing on the LinkedIn platform
– Marketing Developer Products on LinkedIn
Step-by-Step Guide for Building a LinkedIn App
Now let’s walk through a step-by-step guide to building a basic LinkedIn app from scratch. We’ll cover:
– Registering as a LinkedIn developer
– Selecting APIs and use cases
– Authenticating with OAuth 2.0
– Making API calls
– Testing your app
– Publishing your app
Key Capabilities of the LinkedIn Platform
LinkedIn provides developers with a robust platform to integrate professional data, social functionality, and monetization tools. Here are some of the key things you can do when building on LinkedIn:
Access Rich Member Profile Data
LinkedIn has over 722 million members worldwide representing the largest professional network. When building a LinkedIn app, you can leverage member profile data like:
– Name, photo, headline
– Experience (positions, companies, tenures)
– Education history
– Skills and endorsements
– Interests and groups
– Contact info
– Recommendations
– Posts and articles
This wealth of professional profile data can power use cases like sales prospecting, recruiting and hiring, professional networking, marketing research, and more.
Enable Professional Social Actions
Part of the value of LinkedIn is connecting professionals and enabling social actions like:
– Friending/following other members
– Sharing updates, articles, jobs, etc.
– Liking and commenting on content
– Sending messages and InMail
– Joining groups
– Getting updates from companies
As a developer, you can leverage these social capabilities to increase user engagement. Enable notifications, facilitate conversations, and more.
Publish Long-form Posts and Articles
Through the LinkedIn Publishing Platform, you can use APIs to post long-form content like articles and blog posts to LinkedIn on behalf of users. This is a powerful marketing tool to establish thought leadership.
You can programmatically create posts with rich media content including images, videos, docs, and slides. You can also analyze publishing metrics to optimize content.
Manage Company Pages and Showcase Pages
LinkedIn Pages enable companies to establish their brand and market to professionals on LinkedIn. As a developer, you can use Pages APIs to programmatically manage:
– Company Pages – Represent official company profiles
– Showcase Pages – To highlight brands, products, content, etc.
You can post content, edit profiles, analyze follower metrics, and more. This allows you to scale social media marketing and distribution.
Target Sponsored Content
LinkedIn’s Marketing Developer Platform enables you to manage ad campaigns programmatically. You can use their APIs to:
– Create, manage, and optimize pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns
– Leverage profile data to accurately target audiences by industry, job role, skills, etc.
– Enable single sign-on between your app and LinkedIn ad interfaces
This allows you to promote apps and content to the right professionals on LinkedIn.
Integrate Job Listings
LinkedIn is the world’s largest professional network and a major job and recruiting platform. The Jobs API allows your app to:
– Post new job listings on LinkedIn
– Manage applications and applicant tracking
– Promote listings with sponsored jobs campaigns
You can tap into LinkedIn’s huge jobs and talent audience to power recruiting apps and services.
Create Collaborative Microsoft Office Tools
LinkedIn’s Microsoft Office Add-in enables apps that allow users to share content and connect with professionals directly within Office apps like Word, Excel, and PowerPoint.
You can build add-ins to enhance productivity, collaboration, and distribution within Office 365 and Microsoft 365.
Types of Apps You Can Build on LinkedIn
LinkedIn’s platform capabilities lend themselves well to certain types of professional apps. Here are some of the key opportunities for developers:
Sales Prospecting and Intelligence Tools
LinkedIn data powers many popular sales intelligence and prospecting tools that leverage LinkedIn profile data. You can build apps to identify prospects based on parameters like:
– Industry, job titles, and company size
– Technologies used (to identify tech buyers)
– Groups joined
– Skills and interests
– Many other filters
Apps can compile prospect contact info, enable outreach via LinkedIn messaging, and integrate with CRM and sales tools.
Recruiting and Job Hunting Apps
Recruiters heavily rely on LinkedIn to source candidates. You can leverage LinkedIn’s jobs and profiles data to build:
– Recruiter tools to manage sourcing, outreach and applicant tracking
– Job seeker tools to find and apply to the best opportunities
– Career management apps with networking features
– Resources for interview prep, resume building, etc.
This is a major app category that takes advantage of LinkedIn’s massive jobs audience.
Professional Social Media Apps
As the world’s largest professional network, LinkedIn is ideal for social apps purpose-built for business networking. You can create apps to help professionals:
– Expand their network by friending colleagues, peers, influencers etc.
– Share content and updates to build their brand and following
– Discover and join relevant groups to discuss topics and industries
– Message contacts and make new connections
– And more…
The professional focus of LinkedIn presents unique opportunities vs. consumer social networks.
Content Marketing and Distribution Apps
With APIs to publish long-form posts, manage company pages, and sponsor content, LinkedIn is a major platform for B2B content marketing.
Some potential ideas include:
– Apps to schedule and optimize content publishing
– Tools to repurpose content across blogs, LinkedIn, and other channels
– Marketing analytics dashboards to track content performance
– Apps to manage multiple company/showcase pages across brands
– Tools to engage followers and grow your audience
Content posted on LinkedIn can drive massive reach and engagement.
Collaborative Tools for Microsoft Office
Microsoft Office has over 1 billion users globally. The LinkedIn Office add-in enables you to build tools and apps to enhance how professionals network, share content, and find information within Office apps they use daily.
Some examples include:
– Productivity apps to research contacts, companies, and LinkedIn profiles within Office
– Apps to share Office docs and decks to LinkedIn with one click
– Team collaboration tools to discuss Office docs and reference LinkedIn content
– Apps and plugins to find experts, colleagues, groups etc related to Office content
– Tools to publish Office content to LinkedIn
The Office integration provides a frictionless way to blend work apps with LinkedIn.
Company Productivity and Management Apps
Within enterprises, LinkedIn powers internal tools that tap into company organization data and news. For example:
– Company directory apps with LinkedIn profile integration
– Apps for internal experts mapping, mentoring, and networking
– Sharing company news updates and content
– Employee engagement surveys and pulse checks
– Talent analytics combining LinkedIn talent data and internal HR data
LinkedIn provides rich data and distribution within large companies.
LinkedIn’s Offerings for Developers
LinkedIn provides developers with APIs, SDKs, and products to build on their platform. Key offerings include:
LinkedIn APIs and SDKs
The core developer offering includes:
– The LinkedIn API – REST APIs to access LinkedIn data and capabilities
– Official SDKs for iOS, Android, JavaScript, Python, and more
– API documentation and getting started guides
– Code samples to quickly implement common use cases
This provides the fundamental building blocks for accessing LinkedIn via any platform and coding language.
LinkedIn Marketing Developer Platform
For developers focused on marketing solutions, LinkedIn offers:
– Ad APIs to create, target, optimize, and manage advertising campaigns
– APIs to publish long-form posts and analyze content metrics
– Company page and showcase page APIs
– Marketing analytics APIs
Combined this enables developer tools across content publishing, social media marketing, advertising, and analytics.
LinkedIn Platform Solutions
In addition to raw API access, LinkedIn offers some packaged solutions and tools for developers:
– Lead Gen Forms – Embed lead capture forms on LinkedIn
– Apply with LinkedIn – Streamline job application on LinkedIn
– Sharing solutions – Enable seamless content sharing on LinkedIn
– Developers site – Resources to learn, build, and grow
These can kickstart core functionality like lead capture and applying for jobs within LinkedIn apps.
Distribution and Marketing Opportunities
LinkedIn also provides resources to market developer-built apps and solutions:
– LinkedIn Marketing Partner Program – Get marketing support and favored access to APIs and alpha products.
– LinkedIn Marketing Solutions – Reach LinkedIn users via sponsored content and ads. Discounts available for Partner Program members.
– LinkedIn Developer Showcase – Showcase your app prominently on LinkedIn’s developer site.
– Office Store and AppSource – Distribute Office add-ins to Microsoft’s audience.
By building integrated apps with LinkedIn’s platform, you can gain opportunities to market your solutions to LinkedIn’s very targeted professional audience.
Step-by-Step Guide to Building a LinkedIn App
Now that we’ve covered the major capabilities of LinkedIn’s platform, let’s walk through the core steps to building a LinkedIn-connected app from scratch:
Step 1 – Register as a LinkedIn Developer
The first step is to register as a LinkedIn developer in order to get API access:
1. Go to https://www.linkedin.com/developers/ and click “Sign up”
2. Choose to register as an individual developer.
3. Use your personal LinkedIn account and agree to terms.
4. Confirm email and set password.
You will now have a LinkedIn developer account connected to your LinkedIn profile. This provides access to LinkedIn APIs, tools, and documentation.
Step 2 – Select LinkedIn APIs and Use Cases
LinkedIn provides different APIs to access capabilities like profiles, social actions, jobs, ads, content publishing, and more.
Review LinkedIn’s API documentation and choose the specific APIs you need for your app’s use cases.
For example, to build an app to identify sales prospects, you would likely leverage:
– Profile API – To search profiles by industry, company, job title etc.
– Interests API – To target prospects by groups, skills, interests etc.
– Share API – To share content with prospects
Map out all the LinkedIn APIs and data types you’ll need to power your app’s user experience and capabilities.
Step 3 – Authenticate via OAuth 2.0
To make API calls on behalf of a LinkedIn user, you need to authenticate your app using OAuth 2.0.
The process works like this:
1. Set up your Auth credentials in LinkedIn’s developer portal
2. Redirect users to LinkedIn’s OAuth consent screen
3. User authorizes your app’s access permissions
4. Your app receives an access token from LinkedIn
5. Pass the access token in API calls to identify the user
This allows your app’s backend and client to make authorized requests to LinkedIn APIs to act on behalf of the user.
Step 4 – Make API Calls
Once authentication is implemented, you can begin making calls to LinkedIn REST APIs:
– Profile API – Get member profile data
– Share API – Post shares and comments
– Jobs API – Post jobs and get applicants
– etc…
Refer to LinkedIn’s API docs for code samples in your language of choice. You’ll make requests and process the JSON response.
Some key pointers:
– Use SDKs if available for your platform for easier integration
– Implement error handling and retry logic
– Follow LinkedIn’s usage guidelines and rate limits
– Pass access tokens from OAuth authentication
With API access, you can now implement your app’s LinkedIn-powered features!
Step 5 – Test Your App
With the APIs integrated, you’re ready to thoroughly test your app:
– Set up API mocking to simulate responses during development
– Try all app features and flows to identify bugs
– Load test with real profile data sets
– Confirm compliance with LinkedIn’s policies
– Fix bugs and errors as they arise
Invest time into robust unit, integration, and acceptance testing. This will help catch issues and validate your app works before release.
Step 6 – Publish Your App
With a polished app ready for release, you can:
– Submit your app for inclusion in LinkedIn’s app showcase
– Consider releasing on app marketplaces like Google Play and Apple App Store
– Market your app through LinkedIn’s marketing and ad products
– List your app on your LinkedIn profile to attract users
– Join LinkedIn’s Marketing Partner Program for go-to-market support
Get the word out by leveraging LinkedIn’s tools and your LinkedIn network!
Conclusion
In summary, LinkedIn’s platform provides a wealth of opportunities for developers. You can tap into LinkedIn’s extensive user base and professional data to create apps for sales intelligence, recruiting, networking, content marketing, and more.
By using LinkedIn’s Marketing Developer Platform, you can also achieve massive distribution by marketing your app to LinkedIn’s audience of 722 million professionals.
With this guide, you have what you need to register as a LinkedIn developer, select the right APIs, implement LinkedIn authentication, make API calls, thoroughly test your app, and ultimately publish and distribute your LinkedIn-powered app to the right audience.
So in short, yes absolutely – you can leverage LinkedIn’s robust APIs, SDKs, and marketing tools to build a custom app on LinkedIn and achieve success!