Business networking site LinkedIn has launched LinkedIn Surveys. This gives an excellent opportunity to tap into the 30 odd million professionals that belong to the site. It is reported that a number of surveys have already been undertaken.

LinkedIn offers the opportunity to survey the type of people that are normally pretty hard to get hold of. The sampling capabilities are quite varied as well. There is the ability to search for business professionals by a wide range of combinations including;

• Company. Search for current or former employees. Optionally exclude employees from publicly traded companies or from companies that may present a potential conflict of interest.

• Industry. Find professionals in one or more of nearly 150 industries.

• Title. Search for professionals by their current or past business title.

• Expertise. Look for those professionals with specific expertise in the product or market that you are researching.

• Keywords. Use keywords to find professionals by skills, experience, seniority, education, companies, and more.

With the depth of information that LinkedIn has about some very influential people the potential seems enormous. They will need to be careful to manage this service carefully as it could easily irritate and allentate LinkedIn members if used too aggressively.