Conventional wisdom dictates that all social media stocks are dogs, right? Not necessarily. There was good news for business social networking company LinkedIn (News - Alert) yesterday. The company reported impressively high earnings for the third quarter of 2012 after markets closed yesterday. The company beat expectations with non-GAAP earnings of 22 cents per share and revenue of $252 million.

GAAP earnings were two cents per share. As a result of the good news, LinkedIn raised full-year guidance on revenue to a range of $939 million to $944 million. While shares reportedly closed under $107 yesterday, they rose to $115 in after-hours trading.


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Analysts were expecting a strong quarter despite poor economic news from Europe. The consensus, according to analysts polled by Thomson Reuters (News - Alert), was for earnings of 11 cents a share, up 83 percent year over year, and revenue of $244 million—which was a tad higher than the company's guidance, reported Business Insider.

Here are the highlights of the third-quarter results for LinkedIn.

• Revenue for the third quarter was $252.0 million, an increase of 81 percent compared to $139.5 million in the third quarter of 2011.
• Net income for the third quarter was $2.3 million, compared to a net loss of $1.6 million for the third quarter of 2011. Non-GAAP net income for the third quarter was $25.1 million, compared to $6.6 million for the third quarter of 2011. Non-GAAP measures exclude tax-affected stock-based compensation expense and tax-affected amortization of acquired intangible assets.
• Adjusted EBITDA for the third quarter was $56.0 million, or 22 percent of revenue, compared to $24.7 million for the third quarter of 2011, or 18 percent of revenue.
• GAAP diluted EPS for the third quarter was $0.02; Non-GAAP diluted EPS for the third quarter was $0.22.

"LinkedIn had a strong third quarter with all of our key operating and financial metrics showing solid growth," said Jeff Weiner, CEO of LinkedIn, in a statement announcing the results. "The last few months mark the most significant period of product development in the company's history. This accelerated pace of innovation is fundamental to our goal of driving greater engagement on the LinkedIn platform."