With over 1 billion members worldwide, LinkedIn is the top professional social network, helping people across various industries level up their career skills and connecting job seekers with employers since 2002. Despite its humble beginnings, LinkedIn has flourished into an invaluable marketing tool for individuals and businesses, particularly entrepreneurs and B2B brands. If you’re a B2B marketer or a small business owner, keep reading to learn how LinkedIn can help you advertise your brand and make meaningful connections with your target audience.
What is LinkedIn?
LinkedIn is a unique social media platform focused on helping people cultivate business relationships rather than personal ones. Job searchers use LinkedIn to make connections with employers, find job openings, and display qualifications, while recruiters use the site to post job listings and scout for ideal candidates. Not only is LinkedIn used by major corporations like The Walt Disney Company, Nike, and Google but it’s also a vital marketing tool for entrepreneurs, freelancers, and small-business owners looking to promote their brand and find new clients.
Additionally, while LinkedIn is used by both business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-consumer (B2C) brands, it’s also known as a crucial facilitator of B2B sales. Just like LinkedIn helps connect job seekers and employers, it also allows B2B brands to connect with the businesses that need their services, expanding networking possibilities infinitely.
The History of LinkedIn
LinkedIn was founded in 2002 by Reid Hoffman alongside team members from Hoffman’s previous projects, Socialnet.com and PayPal. The site officially launched in May 2003 to little fanfare; by the end of the year, LinkedIn had only managed to amass 245 members. Fortunately, LinkedIn saw markedly higher growth in 2004 after unveiling new features like Groups and address book uploads that attracted small business owners. These updates, combined with an American Express partnership, led to hundreds of thousands of new members joining the platform. In 2005, LinkedIn finally reached 1 million members, and introduced its Subscriptions and Jobs services, allowing companies to post job listings and search for employees.
Today, LinkedIn boasts over 1 billion members from more than 200 countries. Between premium subscriptions, advertising, online courses, and recruitment services, LinkedIn has found a way to profit from helping people find employment and build their professional development skills. Microsoft, which acquired the site in 2016, reported that LinkedIn achieved global revenue of $15 billion in its 2023 fiscal year, demonstrating its value to recruiters, job seekers, and professionals worldwide.
How to Use LinkedIn as a Marketing Tool
As a platform geared toward professional networking, LinkedIn is the ideal tool for marketing yourself or your business. This is how entrepreneurs and B2B brands can use LinkedIn’s many marketing features to maximize their online presence and make lasting connections with their target audience.
LinkedIn for Entrepreneur Marketing
According to a recent survey, 59 percent of respondents agreed that brands that advertise on LinkedIn are viewed as “higher quality.” With its reputation for professionalism, LinkedIn is the best platform for promoting your business. Here’s how entrepreneurs, freelancers, and small business owners can make the most of LinkedIn’s marketing capabilities.
- Create a Compelling Profile: Your LinkedIn profile is the first impression potential employers, clients, and partners will have of you on the site. Thus, it has to make a positive impression on them. LinkedIn’s profile page allows you to highlight your work experience and showcase your skills, personality, and portfolio. Users can also request endorsements from previous clients and employers to validate their abilities and the quality of their work, which is an especially pertinent feature for freelancers and entrepreneurs to establish their credibility and professionalism.
- Build Your Network: With over a billion users in various industries worldwide at your fingertips, LinkedIn is the ideal place to network. There are endless ways to connect on LinkedIn, from joining a group to interacting with people’s posts to reaching out to someone directly and starting a conversation. Building your network could lead to lucrative opportunities and partnerships, so you shouldn’t hesitate to introduce yourself to others, especially as a small business owner trying to increase brand awareness.
- Share Valuable Content: Creating and posting content is one of the best ways to market yourself on LinkedIn. Sharing posts that others find valuable helps you establish your expertise, increase your reliability, and make yourself more visible to the LinkedIn community. Start by identifying trending topics in your industry; then, craft compelling articles or videos about those topics with your unique voice and perspective. Don’t forget to utilize hashtags and visuals to ensure more users see your posts.
LinkedIn for B2B Marketing
For B2B marketers and their clients, LinkedIn is the social platform of choice; according to a survey conducted by Ipsos, 80 percent of B2B marketers use LinkedIn, making it the number one option above sites like YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok. Here’s how B2B marketers can leverage LinkedIn’s advertising features to promote their brand.
- Engage Your Target Audience: LinkedIn users range from entry-level employees to top-level executives, meaning the opportunities for making connections are unlimited. There are several strategies to draw in your target audience on LinkedIn—similar to entrepreneurs, creating compelling content is an excellent method for establishing yourself as a thought leader in your space. Additionally, hosting webinars and other events allows you to promote your business and showcase your value.
- Promote Your Brand: From sponsored content to display ads, LinkedIn ads are a great option for businesses looking to promote themselves through paid advertisements on LinkedIn. These ads can also be targeted to specific demographics to attract the audience you’re aiming for. Additionally, LinkedIn’s Lead Gen Forms allow businesses to maximize leads from ads running on the site to drive their website traffic and increase brand awareness.
- Monitor Your Analytics: The best way to assess the effectiveness of your marketing efforts is by reviewing your brand’s analytics. LinkedIn offers a host of analytic tools to help you determine how your ads are performing and how much engagement your company page is receiving. Based on this information, you can gather insights about your audience and the content they are most interested in seeing from you to adjust your campaign strategies and achieve more significant growth.
Across all industries, digital marketing is essential for any successful business. Digital marketing establishes a strong relationship with your target audience and increases your brand’s awareness, allowing your company to reach a wider audience. To grow your business, start by evaluating your current digital marketing strategy to determine what’s working and what still needs improvement.
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Other Sources:
How LinkedIn Earns Money from Helping People Connect, Learn, Grow, and Get Hired
LinkedIn for entrepreneurs: Leveraging the platform for startup success and growth
The Evolution of LinkedIn Into a Powerful Marketing Tool
The Power Of LinkedIn For B2B Marketing
