Your demographic, sir.

LinkedIn, the social network for white collar professionals, launched LinkedIn Surveys, which enables business-to-business (B2B) marketers to harvest market intelligence from its userbase.

Prior to the debut of Surveys, the LinkedIn Research Network formed alliances with six market research firms, including Phoenix Marketing International and OTX, to conduct B2B research within its network.

"Users will be offered rewards to share their behavior like cash incentives, donations to a charity of their choice, and merchandise," said Director Dan Shapero of business services at the LinkedIn Research Network. "The other reward is that this research might be used to improve the industries they work in."

LinkedIn's user base totals about 30 million professionals, of which about 13 million reside outside the United States. Shapero believes these people give LinkedIn a distinct research advantage over other data providers.

"LinkedIn overcomes quality and authenticity issues that other sample providers face," Shapero went on. "Because of the public and self-policing nature of LinkedIn, members provide deep and accurate profile information and they update that information constantly."

Opt-in market research subjects will receive about four market research survey invitations, per year, on average. Over time, Shapero estimates this figure will increase to one survey invitation per month. To milk the usefulness of this data, responses will be divided by title, seniority, age, function, country and company size.

Involvement in LinkedIn Surveys is opt-in for members, marking, another step in the network's efforts to better engage users. Last July, for example, LinkedIn formed a liaison with NYTimes.com that enables professionals to read news stories related to their industries.

A company release estimated that the online survey market is worth about $900 million. For more information on Surveys, marketers are invited to email surveys [at] linkedin.com.