Mastering LinkedIn Marketing: Essential Insights You Shouldn’t Miss

Engaging with LinkedIn on a personal level differs significantly from utilizing the platform for marketing purposes. A comprehensive understanding of this social networking site can enhance your marketing strategies, although it does require extensive knowledge. To assist you in this endeavor, we’ve compiled this informative guide. Includes updates about the new Companies Hub available in Campaign Manager.

What is LinkedIn?

LinkedIn stands as the premier social media platform for professionals and businesses, making it a critical tool for B2B marketing.

On this platform, users can network with industry peers, current colleagues, and prospective employers. Businesses can promote their offerings, attract potential leads, enhance brand recognition, and position themselves as thought leaders within their sectors. This professional environment is ideal for identifying potential customers who may benefit from your products or services.

Demographics and usage

Per LinkedIn:

• Over 830 million users globally.
• More than 70% of users are located outside the United States.
• The U.S. leads with over 180 million users.
• Following the U.S. are India, China, and Brazil in user count.
• Around 310 million users are considered monthly active users (MAU).
• 40% of MAUs log in daily.
• 48.5% of U.S. users are categorized as monthly active.
• 60.1% of users fall within the 25 to 34 age bracket.
• 52% of users hold a college degree.

These figures depend heavily on self-reporting, so it’s important to remain cautious. For instance, LinkedIn cites over 199 million American users, which accounts for roughly two-thirds of the U.S. population and four-fifths of individuals aged 18 to 64. It’s essential to note that many accounts are business profiles rather than individual profiles, which clarifies these statistics somewhat. Additionally, just like all social media platforms, LinkedIn has its fair share of inactive or “ghost” accounts.

They’re clearly doing something right: LinkedIn’s ad revenue reached $5.91 billion in 2022, projected to increase to $10.35 billion by 2027.

Culture and language

Culture. Each social media platform boasts a unique culture and specific jargon. Users generally present content in the most flattering light, leading to posts that often echo the formality of press releases. This characteristic enables brands and individuals with distinct voices to stand out, though it’s advisable to be cautious when critiquing competition directly. A more subtle approach is favorable: “It’s impressive to see [competitor] back in the game. [Product] marks their best work in years.”

Jargon. LinkedIn, much like any platform, uses terminology that may be confusing. Consider the following:

• LinkedIn is the top platform for CEO interactions among Fortune 500 companies. (“Interactions encompasses virtually all activities on the site.)
• There are 61 million senior-level influencers (those recognized for influencing decisions and public opinions on LinkedIn) and 65 million decision-makers (individuals who can approve purchases) on the platform.
• 17 million opinion leaders (participants in LinkedIn’s Top Voices initiative) contribute to discussions on LinkedIn.

LinkedIn marketing tools

Every interaction on LinkedIn—whether it’s advertising, postings, dialogues, or direct messaging—constitutes a facet of your marketing strategy and should aim for specific objectives. Here are the platform’s essential marketing tools.

Company Page

Your virtual storefront on the platform, serving as a place to promote your brand, share updates, and engage with your audience.

• Brand visibility: An optimized company page enhances your visibility in search engines, akin to a well-crafted website.
• Content distribution: Focus here on your audience’s interests rather than treating it like a press release platform. Share blog posts, industry news, and insightful pieces that offer real value.
• Building a community: Engage authentically by responding to comments, following relevant users, and actively commenting on their posts. Show genuine interest and cultivate meaningful interactions.

LinkedIn Ads

LinkedIn provides various ad formats tailored to connect with your ideal clientele and drive specific actions.

• Sponsored Content: Amplify organic posts to a broader audience.
• Text Ads: Basic text-only ads showcased in the LinkedIn feed.
• InMail Ads: Targeted sponsored messages sent directly to LinkedIn members.
• Dynamic Ads: Personalized ads that adapts to users’ interests and behaviors.
• Thought Leader Ads: Endorsements from employees or industry experts marked as “Promoted by [company]” can enhance visibility among target demographics, mimicking organic posts with a significantly higher click-through rate than standard ads.
• Live Event Ads: These ad types are particularly suited for promoting live events on a company page, driving registrations, views, and engagements.

Targeting parameters can include:

• Demographics: Considerations include age, gender, location, and job title.
• Interests: Related groups, pages, and topics.
• Company attributes: Company size, industry, and seniority levels.
• User behaviors: Interaction with websites, lead forms, and event participation.

Accelerate campaigns

LinkedIn Accelerate is a distinct type of campaign designed to achieve specific business results, such as lead acquisition or boosting website traffic. This option enables a simplified setup process alongside pre-optimized targeting options for businesses with clear objectives.

Accelerate campaigns also utilize AI tools for generating diverse content formats, including images and videos.

New objectives are being integrated—like brand promotion, audience engagement, website conversions, and video views. While standard campaigns offer enhanced customization possibilities for complex goals, Accelerate campaigns streamline the process for those looking for straightforward implementations.

LinkedIn Sales Navigator

Sales Navigator is a powerful tool for sales professionals, designed to streamline prospecting and connecting with potential clients. Key features include:

• Advanced search: Locate leads by applying specific filters such as job title, industry, company size, and geographical location.
• Comprehensive lead profiles: Access detailed information on each lead, including contact details, recent activity, and network connections.
• Lead recommendations: Suggestions for potential leads are generated according to your previous searches and engagement.
• Lead lists: Organize leads into various lists for effective tracking and follow-up.
• Team collaboration: Facilitates collaboration among sales team members by allowing lead sharing and insights exchange.
• Integration: Seamlessly works with LinkedIn’s other sales tools like InMail and Sales Insights.

LinkedIn Analytics

This feature provides insights into your marketing initiatives’ performance, including metrics and reports that help you understand your audience, assess content performance, gauge campaign effectiveness, and compare your results against industry benchmarks.

Key functionalities include:

• Audience insights: Discover information about your followers, including their demographics, interests, and engagement trends.
• Content performance: Monitor the reach, impressions, clicks, and engagement levels of your posts, both organic and paid.
• Campaign tracking: Assess the performance of your advertising initiatives, covering click-through rates, conversion rates, and lead costs.
• Benchmarking: Comparison against industry standards assists in recognizing areas for growth.
• Custom reports: Craft tailored reports to suit specific objectives and requirements.

LinkedIn Stories

Similar to Instagram Stories, these features enable users to share brief, temporary content directly with their connections. This can involve photos, videos, text, and GIFs. The salient features include:

• Ephemeral content: Stories vanish after 24 hours, motivating users to create more casual and timely posts.
• Visual engagement: The attractive format is ideal for sharing behind-the-scenes snapshots, personal updates, or company news.
• Enhanced visibility: Stories are prominently featured in the feeds of your direct connections.
• User engagement: Stories can foster interactions through comments, likes, and direct messages.
• Brand exposure: Companies can utilize Stories for showcasing culture, product updates, and facilitating events or contests.

LinkedIn Showcase pages

These specialized pages are geared towards emphasizing certain products, services, or brand initiatives. They provide a dedicated platform for brands to customize their messaging and content for a specific audience, which can lead to improved engagement and interaction. Showcase Pages also contribute to building both credibility and awareness surrounding featured offerings, ultimately helping to drive sales and leads.

Marketing strategies for LinkedIn

As a seasoned B2B marketer, you’re likely familiar with fundamental LinkedIn marketing concepts. The principles of content marketing and social selling apply universally. Let’s delve into areas that may be less explored.

LinkedIn Live

LinkedIn Live acts as the platform’s engagement tool, allowing you to interact with your audience in real-time. This feature can assist you in:

• Facilitating interactive Q&A sessions to foster relationships and offer valuable insights.
• Revealing exclusive behind-the-scenes content to provide a glimpse into your operations or sector.
• Demonstrating your offerings through live showcases aids in educating viewers and sparking interest.

LinkedIn Live can also be fruitful in generating leads. By providing exclusive content in return for email registration, you can build your contact lists. Hosting contests or giveaways also serves to amplify audience engagement and lead generation by rewarding participants with exciting prizes or discounts. Monitoring interactions with your content will identify prospective leads who show interest through questions or engagement.

Employee advocacy

Employees can significantly amplify your marketing efforts on LinkedIn. However, they require guidance on effective practices. Provide training on utilizing LinkedIn and content sharing, complemented by a content calendar to help manage posting schedules. Acknowledge and reward team members who actively participate to ease their workload.

This strategy not only fosters a sense of ownership among your employees but also contributes positively to your corporate culture. Genuine voices from employees can build trust with potential customers and enhance your brand’s reputation.

LinkedIn Groups

Being active in relevant LinkedIn groups enables relationship-building, networking, and sharing your expertise. Seek out groups that cater to your target demographics and industries, and consistent participation can help elevate your profile.

Marketing tips

• Video reigns supreme: LinkedIn reports that 63% of B2B buyers find that concise videos enhance their decision-making processes. Moreover, 80% trust influencer-driven video content more than other B2B formats. Video has emerged as the fastest-growing type of content on their platform, with a 34% increase in uploads compared to previous years.
• Influencer content is vital: About 67% of buyers who engage with B2B influencer marketing consider it important in their IT purchasing deliberations.
• B2B influencers must exhibit expertise: Over half (53%) of B2B buyers believe that subject matter expertise is crucial for influencers within the sector.
• Expert content fosters trust: Nearly 67% of buyers engaging with B2B influencer content feel that expert insights play a key role in boosting brand trust and elevating awareness regarding products and solutions.
• Utilize Showcase Pages for niche targeting: These pages enable you to cater your messaging and content to specific audience segments, enhancing engagement and relevance.
• Polls are effective interaction tools: Polling can provide a straightforward yet powerful means for engaging your audience.
• Stay current with LinkedIn trends: As LinkedIn continuously evolves, staying informed of new features like LinkedIn Live and LinkedIn Stories is critical to keeping your marketing fresh.
• Hashtags: These can boost visibility when used properly. Research industry-specific hashtags and integrate them wisely into your posts. However, avoid an overuse of hashtags that might render your posts spammy. Keep track of trending hashtags to stay engaged in relevant conversations. As noted by MarTech Editorial Director, Mike Pastore, the effectiveness of hashtags seems to be waning, so they shouldn’t be relied upon too heavily.

Post-boosting tool for lead generation

LinkedIn has launched a new feature aimed at enhancing lead generation. Users can now choose “Lead Generation” as an objective when boosting posts within their feeds, extending beyond the previous limitations of reach and engagement.

This streamlined ad setup allows companies to set budgets, target specific audiences, and attach lead form templates to their boosted posts. This feature facilitates the growth of contact lists while yielding crucial audience insights. It transforms organic content into targeted ads that effectively generate quality leads.

Boosting posts on LinkedIn is a great tactic for expanding the reach of your high-performing content while also allowing for valuable data collection. However, keep in mind that this more lightweight approach doesn’t provide the same detailed targeting features as LinkedIn’s Campaign Manager. To manage comprehensive campaigns, utilizing the entire range of tools offered on LinkedIn is essential.

Companies Hub in Campaign Manager

The newly introduced Companies feature in LinkedIn’s Campaign Manager is aimed at equipping B2B marketers with in-depth insights into account-based marketing performance. This centralized hub enables users to access company-level data around engagement for both organic and paid LinkedIn initiatives.

With this tool, marketers can:

• Identify priority accounts: Pinpoint high-impact accounts by filtering through metrics such as engagement levels, organic reach, and paid interactions.
• Custom-tailor marketing strategies: Direct marketing efforts towards less engaged companies to enhance visibility and conversion.
• Evaluate campaign impact: Monitor performance metrics at the account level focusing on impressions, engagement, and leads yielded.

Potential use cases include:

• Account discovery: Target new accounts based on their organic engagement with your content.
• Expand brand awareness: Explore new sectors by creating audiences from companies with lower engagement levels.
• Lead generation initiatives: Execute targeted campaigns aimed at high-engagement accounts.
• Full-funnel marketing: Implement extensive campaigns with dynamic audience segments designed for different stages of awareness, consideration, and conversion based on account interactions.

Companies Hub provides marketers with essential data and functional capabilities:

• Extensive data: Incorporates data from company interactions across both organic content and paid LinkedIn ads.
• Key performance indicators: Enable review and filtering by engagement metrics, organic performance (impressions, engagement), paid metrics (impressions, clicks, leads), as well as company-specific details (location, size) and date of activity.
• Custom list creation: Save tailored reports, either as dynamic lists (which automatically update) or static lists (which remain fixed).

This new feature promises to provide valuable insights for B2B marketers, aiding in refining ABM strategies and enhancing audience engagement.

Workflow of the Companies Hub