LinkedIn Inc. shares took a beating Thursday as the professional social networking company presented solid Q1 financials but revised down projected earnings for Q2.

The company reported revenue in the first quarter of $638 million, up 35 percent from $473 million in the first quarter of 2014.

Within each division, figures were up across the board. Revenue from Talent Solutions products totaled $396 million, up  36 percent compared to the Q1 2014. Marketing Solutions products totaled $119 million, an increase of 38 percent year-on-year.

Revenue from Premium Subscriptions came in at $122 million, up 28 percent compared to the first quarter of 2014.

The company failed yet again to make a profit, however, reporting a net loss of $43 million for Q1 compared to net loss of $13 million for Q1 2014.

“Q1 was a solid quarter in which we made meaningful progress against our multi-year strategic roadmap,” Chief Executive Officer of Linked Jeff Weiner said in a statement. “During the quarter, we maintained steady growth in member engagement while achieving strong financial results.”

Where things went seriously astray as far as the market was concerned was forward projections: LinkedIn projected revenue of $670 million to $675 million and adjusted earnings per share of 28 cents for the second quarter, versus the market which on average expected earnings per share of 74 cents on revenue of $717.5 million.

LinkedIn shares plummeted 20.95 percent in after-market trading.

Slowing markets?

LinkedIn’s revised figures and share hammering might sound familiar to anyone following the business the last two weeks because we’ve seen it before: Twitter’s stock plummeted as well after revised projections, and Facebook didn’t fare much better.

It’s difficult to generalize about social networking companies because Twitter is an orange to LinkIn’s apple, and yet there appears to be a trend.

Whether it’s a sign of slowing markets, or even maturing ones isn’t clear, but what is clear is that if you had investments in all three companies this week, your stock portfolio just took a battering.

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