Given that more people are on the hunt for a job these days and businesses are looking for creative ways to increase brand awareness and generate leads, it is no surprise that social media platform LinkedIn has seen an increase in usage in 2020. In fact, the professional network’s level of engagement was up a record 31% last quarter.
It is also becoming a hotspot for B2B advertising this year, helping businesses connect with professional audiences who are logged in and actively looking to do business. As you finalize your 2021 media strategy, check out these top reasons to including LinkedIn in your marketing efforts:
Professional Social Platform
LinkedIn offers an outlet for those ready to do business – whether it is advancing their careers, connecting with peers, following industry news or seeking partnership opportunities. This offers a space where your potential customers are already in a professional state of mind when logging into the platform. For example, if a company’s CEO is spending time on Facebook, he or she is likely not there with the intention of doing business – it is typically time spent engaging with friends and family. But if the same CEO logs onto LinkedIn, he or she is predisposed to be in a professional mindset, therefore more open to proposals, sales pitches and relevant ads offering solutions to their challenges.
At the same time, users on the network skew older, are more educated and have a higher income than those on almost all other social platforms. Married together, this platform is an ideal playground for many marketing efforts.
Unique Targeting
Like other advertising avenues, LinkedIn offers an opportunity to target your ads to your defined audiences. But LinkedIn takes it a step further – they offer an option to choose exclusive criteria not found on other platforms, such as company names, member schools, job seniorities, job titles, member skills and more. This means you can focus your efforts on senior-level influencers, decision makers, and C-suite members, reaching top-funnel audiences.
Engaging Ad Formats
Marketers have a number of advertising options available via LinkedIn to reach the right decision makers, including carousel ads, video ads, sponsored content and more. The network also offers Sponsored InMail, which integrates ads into its internal messaging platform. These email-like messages have proven to be highly successful, with open and click-through rates above those of regular emails.
Many businesses rely on their digital advertising to be a key lead generating tool, and LinkedIn makes it easy through their unique and relatively new ad format, lead ads. The lead generating forms are native within LinkedIn instead of sending the user to a different landing page, eliminating an extra step and reducing the risk of losing the lead. Also, the forms automatically pull the required data from the user’s profile, fast tracking filling out the form. This workflow increases the number of submitted forms and reduces the cost per lead.
In addition to offering these strategic ad options to help its users reach their goals, LinkedIn is actively rolling out new features such as LinkedIn Live and has recently released a LinkedIn Events tab to help find upcoming virtual events.
LinkedIn’s robust features are only one piece of a comprehensive marketing plan. But these features offer a real opportunity for success, especially if you’re looking to reach a more professional audience through unique ad formats. If you’re B2B game needs a better strategy to reach more business professionals in 2021, contact us today.
