Why is Advertising on LinkedIn indispensable in B2B marketing?

Do you use LinkedIn only as a rolodex or as an online CV? What a shame! LinkedIn is the largest professional social media platform and offers unique opportunities to connect with other professionals in your field. In this article, we will convince you of the power of LinkedIn: why LinkedIn and how to use LinkedIn, both personally and as an organization.

In the Netherlands, LinkedIn has been a trusted platform for years, with a stable and slightly growing number of users. Research has shown that in 2023 over 5 million people in the Netherlands use LinkedIn, and since 2022 the platform has grown by 47,000 users in the Netherlands. This makes LinkedIn the largest professional social media platform and, in our opinion, the only social media platform focused on business use. But why do we all choose LinkedIn to maintain and expand our professional network?

Why LinkedIn is a useful social network for business use

Both individuals and organizations use LinkedIn for various reasons. At its core, it’s about professional networking and career-oriented goals. Common reasons to use LinkedIn include:

• Networking
• Job searching
• Visibility and personal branding
• Knowledge and advice
• Business promotion
• Researching potential partners or clients
• Career development and advice

It goes far beyond just a rolodex or online CV, doesn’t it?

Why LinkedIn is the platform for professional networking

On LinkedIn, you can easily connect with existing contacts such as colleagues, business partners, clients, and friends. But you can also easily connect with other professionals in your industry. For example, by joining groups, following certain topics, or posting content yourself about these topics and connecting with interesting people in your field. Networking on LinkedIn generates new business opportunities, jobs, collaborations, and advice. Especially the increasing focus on content and the various interaction possibilities LinkedIn offers contribute to expanding your professional network.

Looking for a new job or new colleague on LinkedIn

Of course, the largest professional social network must also provide space to discover new career opportunities. Companies post job vacancies, and for recruiters and headhunters, LinkedIn is a goldmine due to the aggregation of so much information about potential candidates on one network. Are you looking for a new job yourself? You can build your professional profile so that your knowledge and skills become visible to the right people, making it easier to get in touch and increasing your chances of a new job.

Working on your visibility and personal branding with LinkedIn

What is your expertise? With LinkedIn, you have various ways to share your expertise and experiences with other professionals, for example through posts, articles, and updates via your personal profile or in special groups. With valuable content, you not only build visibility but also your personal brand. Who knows, it might even lead to new connections, knowledge, or business opportunities!

Why LinkedIn is a platform to exchange knowledge and advice

You have already seen them earlier in this article: LinkedIn groups. A group on LinkedIn is an easy way to connect with people from the same industry or from a different industry but with the same skills or role. Here you can participate in discussions, ask questions, and exchange knowledge. In recent years, LinkedIn has increasingly focused on content, making it easier via your personal profile to share various types of content and thereby start discussions and exchange knowledge. On no other platform can you so easily connect with other professionals within your field, especially when you don’t know each other yet.

Why LinkedIn is ideal for business promotion

Not only for individuals, but also for organizations, LinkedIn is a very suitable platform for branding and promotion. Organizations can create a profile, giving them their own page just like individuals but with slightly different functionalities. Through this page, they share news, business updates, and job vacancies and can advertise products and services on LinkedIn. In our other article, we explain how and why advertising on LinkedIn is smart, but we can already say that business promotion on LinkedIn is very valuable both paid and organic because everyone uses LinkedIn from a business perspective. In this, LinkedIn is unique compared to all other social media.

Researching potential partners or clients via LinkedIn

LinkedIn is one big collection of professionals and organizations and thus the ideal place to research potential partners or clients. You can easily view and analyze the background and expertise of individuals and organizations before you start a conversation or connect with someone.

Why LinkedIn is your platform for career development and advice

There are countless ways to develop your career and seek advice via LinkedIn. As discussed earlier, asking for advice is easy through groups or your personal profile, but LinkedIn also offers a lot of insight into open vacancies (and how you stand in the market), average salaries per industry or job group, requesting and creating references. LinkedIn also offers courses for the skills you want to improve before applying for your next position, for example, Excel, SQL, Photoshop, and communication skills.

4 tips to get more out of your LinkedIn profile

Have you decided after reading the above points to start (more actively) working with LinkedIn? Then we have a few tips for you:

1. Optimize your profile. Think of a professional profile photo, a background image, a clear and professional headline, and an engaging summary about your expertise, professional background, skills, and goals. Don’t forget to add all your relevant work experience, education, and certificates.
2. Expand your network: Start with people you already know such as colleagues, family, friends, and existing business contacts. Also dare to connect with interesting people you don’t know yet, but then add a personal message with your invitation introducing yourself.
3. Regularly share valuable content. Think of articles or updates that fit your field of work, for example posts from the organization you work for. If you share a post from your employer directly, don’t forget to add a small piece of text, for example why it is a relevant piece or what you contributed to it. This makes it much more interesting for your followers.
4. Be active: Try to log in regularly, for example once a week. Don’t just post content yourself, but also react to others’ content and be active within your network. It can help to set yourself a goal, for example posting one (own) update weekly.

Tips to increase LinkedIn usage within your organization

Do you want to achieve more visibility on LinkedIn as a manager, team leader, or owner but don’t know how to get your team on board? We have some tips for that as well:

• Explain why LinkedIn is relevant for your organization.
• Lead by example, so make sure you are active on LinkedIn yourself! And also respond to employees’ posts, so they see it is truly noticed and appreciated.
• Give tips and possibly training when team members find LinkedIn difficult. Show them how to build a good profile, how to easily post something (or repost), and how to respond to others’ posts or participate in groups.
• Make sharing easy. For example, share links your team can share and create new content together that team members can easily repost.
• A shared content calendar can also ensure your team shares content more often. An additional benefit is that it becomes a shared responsibility, creating more bonding between team members.
• Set clear goals. What do you want to achieve as a team? Break this down into goals for the company page and personal goals, so it’s clear everyone has a role that contributes to joint success.
• Monitor progress, LinkedIn provides plenty of useful insights about content reach, number of likes, number of followers of the company page, etc.
• Acknowledge and celebrate achieved goals. Have you set follower or impression goals for this year in advance? Then as a team, pay attention to it when the goal is reached.

Would you like to talk about LinkedIn and how to use it within your organization? We are happy to share our insights and experiences regarding organic and paid LinkedIn campaigns with you. Want to read more first? Of course, you can! Then take a look at our LinkedIn advertising page, where we mainly share many insights and examples of paid campaigns.