Dive Brief: 

• LinkedIn's third quarter earnings showed a jump of 45% in ad revenue year over year. 
• The spike was led by sponsored updates—a content marketing product that allows advertisers to reach LinkedIn users outside of their followers. 
• In the third quarter, sponsored updates generated 31% of ad revenue. Last year it was only 7%.

Dive Insight: 

There's no denying that LinkedIn must be doing something right with its sponsored updates and other ad products. And with the statistic that two users join LinkedIn every second, it has become the social network to watch.