Haven't heard of Xing? You're about to hear much more. The European LinkedIn rival is cranking up its London marketing activity in the next few weeks with 400 London billboards and ads in the Metro, clearly targeting London's commuting business people, and an online campaign to boot. The strapline is "Start Networking, not just Linkin" - though they don't actually tell you why Xing is any better than LinkedIn.
Photograph: Jef Poskanzer/Flickr/some rights reserved
Xing has a huge following on the continent and claims 6 million unique users each month worldwide - 500,000 of which pay to use the premium service. The site faces a typically tough battle to build UK usership; it has done well outside the English-speaking online world but US services translate more easily to the UK market than European rivals. How many of the social networks and web services we use are European in origin, rather than US? Very few.
Why the marketing push no? If you were cynical, you'd say that with the plunging economy, investors are demanding that their most lucrative projects get even more aggressive - and that means products around business communities. LinkedIn is a powerful website with a lucrative demographic, and Xing is the same.
