LinkedIn, The World, France, Germany, India and China

OK, LinkedIn is the 1st worldwide and in Europe BUT not in Germany and France.

Germany and France are still important markets and still love to speak their respective national language. Actually they not only love to speak it, but a sizeable part of french and german people do not speak any other language and they live and work very happily.

That's why, it is my feeling that whatever the size LinkedIn will reach, both Xing and Viadeo will keep an advantage in France and Germany.

By the way, I think there is definetely a place for a chinese speaking social networking site, and that's why Viadeo made an alliance with one of them... No place though for an indian speaking social networking site as many languages are spoken in India and english is the common language. India is using LinkedIn!

Read also my previous post Are French and German not interested in "social networking"?

By the way, I'm an open networker and welcome all invitations on LinkedIn, Viadeo and Xing.

I use Viadeo for France (4000+ 1st level contacts), LinkedIn for the world (12000+ 1st level contacts) and Xing for german speaking countries (1000+ 1st level contacts). I am not speaking chinese fluently enough to invite you to connect on a chinese social networking site :-(

Are French and German not interested in “social networking”?

I have several thousands of 1^st level LinkedIn connections who gave me access to about 55% of the total LinkedIn users. Like you, I can see the top 5 locations where my network is the most developed.

In my network, the top 5 locations are: UK 8%, Bay area 7%, NY 6%, France 4% and Netherland 4%. Germany does not even appear.

UK, Germany and France have roughly the same population around 60 millions. Netherland have less than 20 millions inhabitants a third of the population of the above countries.

So are are french and german not interested in “social networking”?

The truth is that germans and frenchs are as much interested in social networking as other western countries, but they are using other networking social sites than LinkedIn.

Germans use Xing (ex-OpenBC) and frenchs use Viadeo (ex-Viaduc).

750 000 french people are on Viadeo whether 300 000 are on LinkedIn.

If you want to reach french and german people today, you also have to be present on Xing and Viadeo.

To have a good start-up on Viadeo, I invite you as an open networker with thousands of Viadeo 1^st level connections to connect with me by clicking http://www.viadeo.com/contacts/invitationsimple/?from=adressbook&lastname=Mariacher&firstname=Eric&email=eric.mariacher@gmail.com&isMember=true

Read also: LinkedIn, The World, France, Germany and China

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