It’s a no-brainer that LinkedIn is the ideal social media platform for professionals to connect, build professional communities, do business, and build a reputation as a thought leader in their field. But what marketing features can you leverage on the platform to achieve business objectives? Keep on reading to find out.
Setting the Marketing Objectives
Before starting any activities, you need to have clear goals for your marketing plan in order to create a LinkedIn marketing strategy. You can set objectives such as:
- Brand awareness through the wide network of professionals and various types of audiences present on the platform.
- Employer branding and/or recruitment of talented people;
- Lead generation through the different types of campaigns that can be run on the platform.
- Positioning as a thought leader in a field by showing your cumulative expertise and ability to understand an industry and bring other perspectives into the game.
The other day, while discussing strategy with a client, we proposed sponsoring a specific piece of content about his business on LinkedIn. His reaction confirmed our thinking:
“That’s a great idea! I always check the sponsored content in the right sidebar to discover new opportunities.”
If you’re wondering, “Is LinkedIn really effective for my business’s marketing strategy?” the answer is a definite yes. LinkedIn generates the highest visitor-to-lead conversion rate, at 2.74%, which is almost three times higher than Twitter and Facebook combined. As a result, LinkedIn has become a highly effective lead-generation tool.
How to Develop a LinkedIn Marketing Strategy
At the foundation of any marketing strategy, including LinkedIn, there are three essential aspects you need to cover: market and competitor research, defining your target audience, and understanding the marketing tools available, so you can choose the ones that best fit your objectives.
Research the Market and Competitors
Hopefully, your business is already familiar with its main competitors and understands how to differentiate itself. However, if you’re developing a LinkedIn marketing plan, we recommend analyzing how competitors structure their company pages, what type of information and design they use, and most importantly, what kind of content drives engagement.
You’ll likely discover many simple improvements you can apply based on the best practices you identify during your research. Be sure to review their ads section as well. Learn from their approach so you can go a step further.
Bonus tip: The Ads section on company pages can be especially useful if you know how to check engagement levels. Copy the ad link and open it in a new browser window. This way, you can see how their ads are performing and gather inspiration for your own campaigns.
Define the Audience on LinkedIn
Two LinkedIn features that we find particularly useful in guiding our content marketing efforts are the “Content Suggestions” and “Analytics” sections on the company page (located above the cover image).
The Content Suggestions feature is quite self-explanatory, but what makes it truly valuable are the filters that allow you to target different audience segments. Based on the criteria you select (such as industry or job role), LinkedIn curates the most engaging articles relevant to that audience. It also provides topic ideas you can build your own content around.
This helps you not only generate ideas for posts that spark conversations on your company page but also identify trending articles you can share and engage with, often connecting your brand to well-established pages and industry discussions.
Below, you’ll find a short 1:50-minute explanation of how this feature works.
The Analytics feature also provides valuable insights that help you understand:
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How you perform compared to similar competitors
(Analytics → Followers → Scroll to the bottom of the page to view the comparison stats). -
Which posts generate the most clicks and engagement, helping you identify the type of content your LinkedIn audience responds to the most
(Analytics → Updates). -
Follower demographics based on location, industry, job function, seniority, and company size. This shows you who has shown interest in your page and helps you plan campaigns, especially if you aim to target audiences different from your current followers
(Analytics → Followers → Scroll to “Follower demographics” and select the categories you want to explore). -
A comparison between follower demographics and visitor demographics. The differences may surprise you. The people who visit your page are not always the same as those who follow it, and that’s an important insight to consider
(Analytics → Visitors → Scroll to “Visitor demographics” and select the categories you’re interested in).
LinkedIn Marketing Features
It’s time to get familiar with the marketing features you can leverage on LinkedIn this year. We’ll give an overview of the available tools that a business could use when creating its marketing plan:
LinkedIn Ads
Sponsored Content allows you to promote posts directly in users’ news feeds, making it one of the most natural ways to reach your audience within the platform’s environment.
Sponsored InMail works similarly to email marketing. These messages are delivered both through LinkedIn and to the recipient’s personal email inbox, helping you reach users directly with personalized communication.
Text Ads are simple and cost-effective formats displayed in specific areas of the LinkedIn interface. They are typically used to drive traffic or generate leads at scale.
Dynamic Ads are small, personalized ads shown on the right side of the news feed and are available on desktop only. Their main advantage is the ability to tailor content based on the user’s profile information, making them highly relevant.
Programmatic Display Ads operate through bidding in public or private auctions. The highest bid wins the ad placement, but the amount you actually pay per click is usually just above the second-highest bid. For example, if you bid $5 per click and the next highest bid is $4, you win and are charged around $4.01 per click. Since bids are not public, you don’t know who you’re competing against or the exact amounts.
Matched Audiences for Retargeting
Matched Audiences allow you to retarget people based on website visits, email contact lists, or specific account targeting. This feature helps you reach users who have already interacted with your business in some way, making your campaigns more relevant and effective. We recommend LinkedIn’s official video series for a clear explanation of how this works and how to set up retargeting properly.
LinkedIn Groups
Groups are not only useful for engaging with existing communities by sharing insights and resources. Creating your own group around a niche topic within your industry can be a powerful strategy. You can start by inviting relevant contacts, and over time, others will discover and join the group organically. Groups are valuable because they allow you to recommend your best posts, generate higher engagement, and increase awareness of your brand within a targeted audience.
Hashtags & Relevant Keywords
LinkedIn highlights popular hashtags on the right side of your company profile page. Adding hashtags to your posts helps people interested in specific topics discover, share, and engage with your content. This also increases your brand’s visibility and overall awareness. Relevant keywords work in a similar way, but they are mainly used through LinkedIn’s search bar. People use keywords to find content, groups, and companies, as well as spaces where they can contribute and stay connected to topics that matter to them.
Showcase Pages on Your Company Profile
A Showcase Page allows your company to create a dedicated space within your profile to highlight specific projects, products, services, or initiatives. It can also be used to present company culture, employee stories, and the values that guide your business. These pages help you communicate targeted messages to different audience segments while strengthening your overall brand presence.
Final Thoughts
There’s no doubt that LinkedIn has become the go-to platform for professional engagement. Building a strong B2B LinkedIn marketing strategy might be exactly the boost your company needs to grow and achieve its objectives.
Let us help you take the next step. Get in touch today.
