Question

As a senior executive of LinkedIn, you have been asked to create an external assessment report as to the threat posed by Facebook, and some steps that your company can take to survive this social media giant in the next 5 years. Review some of the questions on Page 69, Exhibit 3-5 - "Key Questions About Competitors", and show the scope of this external assessment, with examples. You may use other exhibits in the Chapter also to help your case. Consider options whether LinkedIn will remain relevant in a few years, or should it be sold to Facebook while it is still being used, or consider the other alternative Also consider the following: Will Facebook become irrelevant in a few years, like 'MySPACE' of past and something else will replace the brand, like Snapchat or Instagram, or maybe the whole social media platforms will look completely different 5 years from now. Where do you see your own personal preferences of using social media and why? Which of the platforms will be most productive for business to you?

(See the questions below that are referenced in the question)

TABLE 3-5 Key Questions About Competitors 1. What are the strengths of our major competitors? 2. What are the weaknesses of our major competitors? 3. What are the objectives and strategies of our major competitors? 4. How will our major competitors most likely respond to current economic, social, cultural, demographic, environmental, political, governmental, legal, technological, and competitive trends affecting our industry? 5. How vulnerable are the major competitors to our alternative company strategies? 6. How vulnerable are our alternative strategies to successful counterattack by our major competitors? 7. How are our products or services positioned relative to major competitors? 8. To what extent are new firms entering and old firms leaving this industry? 9. What key factors have resulted in our present competitive position in this industry? 10. How have the sales and profit rankings of our major competitors in the industry changed over recent years? Why have these rankings changed that way? 11. What is the nature of supplier and distributor relationships in this industry? 12. To what extent could substitute products or services be a threat to our competitors?

Answer 1

1. What are the strengths of our major competitors?

Linkedin, in the corporate world, is known as a social media platform for the professional world.

In terms of social media platforms, there are a lot of options available for the users in the digital world and some of them are being used worldwide such as Facebook, Reddit, Instagram, Snapchat etc. Though LinkedIn is majorly considered as a platform through which the professional world is connected, it is still sometimes considered equivalent to other options out there. The other social media platforms include photo and media sharing which is not filtered for fun-filled things. People can share their personal pics and share them among their friends and relatives. While LinkedIn, on the other hand, criticizes this type of sharing.

2. What are the weaknesses of our major competitors?

The major weakness of all the social media platforms except LinkedIn is that all other platforms are now considered misleading and bad for a child's mentality. LinkedIn, on the other hand, is clean and can be used by everyone to grow their careers. Features like LinkedIn jobs and LinkedIn learning are helping young minds to learn and get placements.