Social media remains an important aspect of our personal and business lives, bridging the enterprise and consumer market with broadening expectations.  And as companies like LinkedIn and Facebook continue seeking ways to make a profitable business of social media, Wikibon analyst Jeff Kelly discusses the latest social media updates in a recent interview on the SiliconAngle News Desk (see full video below).

Jeff starts by reflecting on LinkedIn, and how it got to where it is now.  The social network’s user base increased from roughly 32 million in January 2009 to over 175 million users today, and it can all be credited to its usefulness.  Before LinkedIn there was no convenient way of maintaining those long-term relationships with colleagues that come handy in so handy when you’re looking for a job, another activity that the site also covers to a great extent.

Now, Jeff says that the company is looking to make its platform even more advantageous with a couple of major additions.  An upcoming update to LinkedIn will make profiles more user-friendly and “Facebook-like,” and will also introduce a cross-referencing feature that will allow individuals to gain better insight about their circle of connections.

The new functionality will allow a user to check if their network overlaps at certain areas of interest: for example, they’ll be able to see if some colleagues worked at the same company.

Further into the chat Jeff also addresses the latest from Facebook: the company has reportedly made a new analytical capability available to a select group of marketers.

Advertisers have had the ability to gauge exactly how many users Like their pages for a long time now.  But what they couldn’t do, at least up until now, is see all the other things that those users Liked.  Jeff notes that this is a major extension to Facebook’s offering – it’s not hard to see how a better understanding of consumers’ interests can help marketers identify new advertising opportunities and improve targeting.   The company is doing a gradual roll out of this functionality; the Wikibon analyst approves, considering that Facebook is no stranger to receiving backlash for leveraging its users’ data.