LinkedIn’s API allows developers to access a wealth of data from LinkedIn profiles and networks. This data can be incredibly valuable for businesses looking to understand their target audiences, find qualified leads, and enhance their marketing and recruiting efforts.
In this comprehensive guide, we will explore the main categories of data available through LinkedIn’s API and how this data can be used.
Profile Data
The most basic level of data available through the LinkedIn API is profile data from individual LinkedIn members. This includes information such as:
- Name
- Headline
- Location
- Industry
- Current company
- Profile photo
- Profile summary
- Skills
- Education history
- Work experience
Access to profile data allows developers to create applications and tools that can search for and analyze LinkedIn profiles. This is useful for recruiting, sales prospecting, market research, and more.
Example Uses
- A recruiting tool that lets recruiters search for and filter candidates based on skills, experience level, location and other profile data.
- A sales tool that identifies leads based on profile data like title, company, industry, skills, etc.
- Building a directory or database of professionals filtered by industry, seniority level, job function, etc.
Connection Data
LinkedIn’s API provides access to a member’s 1st and 2nd degree connections. This allows you to analyze someone’s professional network and identify key relationships. Connection data includes:
- List of 1st degree connections
- How you are connected to each 1st degree connection (friend, colleague,etc.)
- List of 2nd degree connections
- How you are connected to each 2nd degree connection
- Profile data for each connection
This information can help identify relationships and networks within and across companies. It provides insight into who knows who and can facilitate networking and partnership opportunities.
Example Uses
- Finding key relationships between companies you want to partner with
- Identifying influencers and decision-makers within a company
- Discovering connections that could facilitate warm introductions for sales prospects
- Network analysis to understand high-level connections between individuals and organizations
Company Data
LinkedIn provides data on more than 30 million companies through their API. Information available on companies includes:
- Company name
- Description
- Industry
- Logo
- Location
- Company size
- Founded date
- Specialties
- Website URL
- List of employees
Company data enables competitor research, identifying ideal customer profiles, discovering partner companies, and much more.
Example Uses
- Researching competitors to understand their strengths and weaknesses
- Lead generation by identifying companies that match your ideal customer profile
- Recruiting by discovering companies with high talent concentrations in your required skills
- Partnership identification by finding companies in complementary or tangential industries
Interest Data
LinkedIn members have the ability to follow specific companies, industries, skills, etc. The API provides access to this interest data including:
- List of followed companies
- List of followed industries
- List of followed skills
- List of followed interests
This information allows you to understand a member’s professional interests and passions. It provides signal into what they care about and value.
Example Uses
- Identifying subject matter experts based on their followed skills and interests
- Segmenting your audience based on industries and companies they follow
- Discovering member interests to inform content creation and distribution
- Targeting members with advertising for followed companies and industries
Group Data
LinkedIn Groups provide a way for professionals to share content and discuss topics of interest. The API provides data on group membership including:
- List of groups a member belongs to
- For each group – name, category, description, website URL, logo, etc.
- Member’s role within each group (manager, member, etc.)
- Group statistics like number of members
Group data enables understanding a member’s interests, identifying influencers in niche topics, segmenting audiences, and more.
Example Uses
- Targeting members based on group membership and interests
- Discovering subject matter experts who manage relevant groups
- Identifying evangelists and advocates who are active in related groups
- Monitoring industry trends and discussions based on group activity
Social Actions Data
LinkedIn members can like, comment on, and share content posted by other members and companies. The API provides data on these social actions including:
- Posts a member has liked
- Comments a member has made
- Content a member has shared
- Likes, shares, and comments on the member’s own posts
Social actions provide insight into member interests, attitudes, and engagement levels. This allows personalized messaging and identifying advocates.
Example Uses
- Determining member interests based on content they consistently engage with
- Identifying advocates who actively like, share, and comment on your content
- Segmenting audiences based on social engagement levels and interests
- Monitoring engagement levels across different types of content
Share Statistics
In addition to social actions, the API provides aggregate statistics on shares of content including:
- Impressions
- Likes
- Comments
- clicks
- Engagement
- Follows
- Shares
These share statistics give insight into how content is performing and being received. It enables optimization of messaging, timing, and targeting.
Example Uses
- Identifying your best performing content types and formats
- Informing content strategy based on posts that drove high engagement
- Determining optimal posting cadence based on traffic patterns
- Analyzing follower growth and retention rates
- Benchmarking performance against competitors or industry averages
Search API
LinkedIn provides a search API that allows sophisticated programmatic querying of LinkedIn data. You can search across profiles, companies, groups, posts, and other objects. Search parameters include:
- Keywords
- Name
- Location
- Company
- Industry
- Job Title
- Groups
- Skills
- And more…
Robust filtering and the ability to customize search queries allows scraping LinkedIn data for intelligence and insights.
Example Uses
- Lead generation based on customized prospect filters
- Recruitment search with filters by skills, experience, education, etc.
- Competitive intelligence through searching profiles of employees at target companies
- Identification of subject matter experts by keyword and skill search
Filtering and Targeting
LinkedIn’s API provides robust options for filtering data and targeting results. Important options include:
- Profile language – Limit results to profiles with specific language.
- Profile location – Filter location by country, region, areacode.
- Company size – Target companies based on size.
- Industry – Focus on specific industries.
- Job function – Filter profiles by department and function.
- Seniority – Target entry level, manager, director, CXO roles.
Fine-tuned filtering allows you to tightly define your target prospects and opportunities.
Analytics and Tracking
Understanding API usage patterns is critical for optimization. LinkedIn provides robust analytics support including:
- Request counts
- Throttle rates
- Quota usage
- Most used endpoints
- Error tracking
- Latency monitoring
These metrics help you analyze usage, identify issues, and improve performance of applications using the API.
Summary of Key Data Categories
In summary, main categories of data from LinkedIn API include:
- Profile data
- Connections
- Companies
- Interests
- Groups
- Social actions
- Share statistics
- Search
- Filtering options
- Analytics
This wealth of data powers everything from recruiting to sales prospecting, competitive intelligence, market research, audience segmentation, partnership opportunities, and much more.
The LinkedIn API provides the data foundation for valuable business applications and insights.
Real-World Use Cases
Here are some real-world examples of how companies leverage LinkedIn data and APIs:
Recruitment
- Source passive candidates based on skill keywords, experience level, and other filters.
- Build a talent pool/database of high potential candidates to foster relationships over time.
- Analyze competition hiring trends based on employees at key companies.
- Post jobs and source relevant candidates.
- Use profile data like skills and job titles for pay equity analysis.
Sales Prospecting
- Identify key accounts based on LinkedIn profile data like industry, role, and company size.
- Discover connections and relationships into target accounts.
- Research accounts to identify pain points and initiatives.
- Segment and prioritize accounts using firmographic data.
- Track engagement with your content for lead scoring.
Competitive Intelligence
- Research competitors’ organizational charts, hiring trends and team structures.
- Monitor competitors’ employee growth and churn.
- Analyze competitors’ job postings for skill requirements.
- Identify key employees like engineers, product leaders, executives.
- Track engagement with competitors’ content for messaging analysis.
Targeted Advertising
- Target ads based on member skills, interests, company roles and functions.
- Create customized audiences from mailing lists, event attendees, etc.
- Exclude customers from campaigns to control ad spend.
- Remarket to prospects who have engaged with your content.
- Analyze campaign metrics like CTR, CPC, and conversion rates.
Market Research
- Segment target audiences based on firmographic data for surveys.
- Identify key voices and influencers using company, title and network analytics.
- Mine group data to analyze trends and discussions.
- Analyze keywords and skills for demand insights.
- Gauge brand awareness through company follow and post engagement data.
Getting Started with the LinkedIn API
Here are the key steps to get started using LinkedIn’s APIs:
- Sign up as a LinkedIn developer and create a LinkedIn app to get API keys.
- Review LinkedIn API documentation and choose the endpoints you need.
- Consider application requirements – data sources, call limits, etc.
- Set up authentication through OAuth.
- Make API calls from your app and handle responses.
- Ensure you follow LinkedIn terms of use and respect member privacy.
- Analyze API metrics to optimize usage and performance.
- Explore next steps like social posting, partnership opportunities.
LinkedIn provides SDKs for various programming languages to simplify getting started. With robust data and flexible access, LinkedIn’s API opens up valuable insights for any business.
Conclusion
The depth of professional data available from LinkedIn provides fertile ground for business insights and applications. Core categories of data include profiles, networks, interests, companies, groups, engagement, search, advertising, and more.
This data powers use cases across recruiting, sales, marketing, research, partnerships, competitive intelligence and beyond. With proper analysis and targeting, businesses can extract tremendous value from LinkedIn data to enhance decisions and results.
LinkedIn’s comprehensive API provides structured access that enables developers to build valuable tools. For any business seeking professional insights, the LinkedIn API provides the key to unlocking a world of possibilities.