LinkedIn, the professionally-oriented online social network, was acquired in 2016 by technology giant Microsoft for $26.2 billion. Although Microsoft was partly motivated by LinkedIn’s top-notch talent and intellectual property, the vast majority of this price tag can be attributed to the firm’s network of customer relationships and brand. At the time of its acquisition, LinkedIn had a registered user base of about 430 million individuals, with about 106 million unique monthly active users (MAU). 

Like many technology firms, LinkedIn gets value from its ongoing customer relationships in multiple ways. Firms often achieve this value through paid subscriptions, targeted advertising, and the sale of user-generated data to outside parties. LinkedIn is no exception. The network sells paid subscriptions that offer premium features like enhanced personal profiles and priority ranking in hire recommendations to job recruiters. For advertisers, LinkedIn can provide finely targeted ads based not just on demographic information, but also on site-specific insights like users’ personal interests, career aspirations, and social connections....

Questions: 

1. What are the three key aspects of LinkedIn’s customer management approach? 

2. What new customers might Microsoft target with the data it has acquired and will continue to acquire from the LinkedIn acquisition? What types of companies would be most interested in this data?