My last one, two, three posts that involved Xing.com did always contain a comparison to LinkedIn. This time is it no different, although there nothing directly to compare. Xing does something, that LinkedIn did not do yet and probably also not anticipated.
Xing announced today that they agreed with ZoomInfo.com on a mutual partnership.
Quote from the official Xing.com Blog:
The partnership will provide XING’s 2 million-plus members with immediate access to profiles on nearly 36 million business people and 3.8 million companies directly from the XING platform.
Furthermore, XING Premium Members will have the ability to contact over 18 million professionals directly and securely. ZoomInfo’s 4.5 million unique monthly visitors will also be able to join XING’s business network directly with a simple two-click process.
The Integration between the Xing and Zoom platforms is planned to be completed by fall this year.
See also the offical press release that was released today.
This is a very smart strategic move by Xing to close the membership numbers gap between Xing and LinkedIn, which is a staggering 8 million (two million Xing members versus ten million LinkedIn members).
The benefits of a social networking site for businesses plus the access to the vast databases of both, Xing and ZoomInfo to find potential business partners or customers will be intriguing, especially for business people in the United States, who use LinkedIn only, for the most part. This partnership is certainly a good reason to consider the signup at Xing.com in addition to LinkedIn.
Xing is strong in the European market and expanded aggressively into the Asian market too. It was less successful in the U.S. market so far, but who knows, maybe this partnership will change it and allow Xing to gain significant numbers of new U.S. members by next year.
We will have to wait until fall and the completion of the integration to see how it will play out.
I already have both, a LinkedIn and Xing account. Something I would suggest to anybody who has business relationships inside and outside the United States.
Carsten Cumbrowski
Internet Marketing Resources at Cumbrowski.com, including the updated Internet Marketing Tradeshows and Events Calender for SEO, SEM, AM, DM and other internet marketers.
