7 Reasons Why LinkedIn Is a Powerful Marketing Tool for Every B2B Business

If you’re a B2B business and want to market to other B2Bs then there is no better platform than LinkedIn to build connections with potential clients.

With over 58 million companies listed on LinkedIn, it is a powerful tool for B2B lead generation, building brand awareness and targeting the key decision makers you want to do business with. Some interesting facts about LinkedIn: 

Every minute 6 people are hired through LinkedIn. 

LinkedIn has 19,000 employees worldwide. 

And is the world’s largest professional network with over 850 million members.

A staggering 93% of B2B marketers use LinkedIn for organic social content marketing. 

What’s more, LinkedIn’s conversion rates are double that of any other social channel.  

Though the platform officially launched on May 5th, 2003 to help people find jobs it has evolved into an invaluable community space for networking professionals and has expanded its functionality to be a leading authority on B2B marketing. 

So let’s talk more about why Linkedin is a powerful tool for your business.

1. Spark Professional Conversations 

Optimise your profile, start a group, join groups, create a company page, share, republish content or pay for it. There are several ways you can use LinkedIn to tell your company’s story and create effective engagement with prospective customers – and it’s free! 

LinkedIn is a fantastic B2B lead generation platform and whether you’re a small to medium-sized business or a startup you can use the social network to target the key decision-makers in your niche to find the people you want to do business with.

2. B2B Marketing Solutions 

If you want to stay relevant in B2B then The B2B Institute is an excellent creative resource for B2B content. It’s a think tank with a team at LinkedIn working on compiling data and research around B2B topics, publishing their findings on the latest B2B trends, B2B marketing, how to grow B2B brands and much more. 

Follow the Institute’s tips on strategy, creativity, distribution and measurement to maximise your marketing efforts and reach your target audience more effectively.

LinkedIn’s Lead Generation Forms are also worth checking out with a ‘How To’ explainer video showing what you can do with Lead Gen forms and how with a single click on the form members can send you their information creating quality leads for your business in an instant.

3. LinkedIn Advertising 

LinkedIn offers several types of ads that will help get your campaign off to the best start and reach your target audience. 

• Sponsored content: You can use sponsored content to maximise your post’s reach by creating a campaign and there are several ad formats available including single image ads, carousel ads and event ads.  

• Text ads: Create, manage and optimise content easily with a budget that works for you. Text ads are short ads so the messaging you use needs to be clear and concise to get your message across. 

• Sponsored InMail: This type of email marketing is highly effective as Sponsored InMail will only reach members when they are actively on the site increasing your chances of engagement and having good conversion rates. 

• Display ads: FYI - these ads used to display on LinkedIn’s right-hand display bar but are no longer available. 

• Sponsored messaging: LinkedIn Sponsored Messaging comes in two formats. Message Ads allow you to send direct messages to prospects to deliver a targeted message to gain an immediate response. Conversation ads are more about deepening engagement with your audience and gaining deeper insights into prospects’ specific wants and needs.  

• Dynamic ads: These ads can be personalised and tailored to every member you target, based on their profile data, so you can personalise them for different audiences making them very effective in driving traffic to your website.

You only need to look at this to see how effective LinkedIn ads are. It gives 10 ad examples of LinkedIn Ads that smashed it on the professional network in terms of scoring high in click-through rates and conversions.

4: LinkedIn Jobs 

LinkedIn has evolved to become a powerful platform in terms of B2B marketing, however, LinkedIn never forgets that the recruitment side of its business is its bread and butter. 

49 million people still use LinkedIn to search for jobs every week and LinkedIn Profile Views are incredibly useful for employers to gauge prospective candidates. 

5: LinkedIn Learning 

With over 16,000+ online courses taught by industry experts, LinkedIn Learning is a brilliant resource for any B2B business that wants to train its teams effectively. And who doesn’t love a shiny certificate once the course is completed? 

LinkedIn Learning is free for one month and starts at €40.65, however, you can cancel at any time. See here for more info on how LinkedIn Learning can upscale your training efforts and benefit your business. 

6. The LinkedIn Collective 

Did you know about the new LinkedIn Collective? It’s LinkedIn’s new marketing information initiative, a resource and community space for marketing discussions and sharing of knowledge where a team at  LinkedIn creates and curates the best posts and updates daily. 

Vice President of Marketing at LinkedIn Marketing Solutions Jim Habig explained why LinkedIn wanted to be a driving force in B2B content creation and discussion that will drive business growth. 

“Our new content brand is platform-first. That is, it will live, breathe and grow on LinkedIn. Some see LinkedIn purely as a distribution or promotional channel but we’re here to challenge this assumption. Our platform is more than that – it’s a thriving community of 850 million members that turn to us to help build their brands, foster connections and grow their communities.” 

Follow The Collective here. 

7. LinkedIn Video 

Video is arguably the most effective medium for explaining your product or service and easily connecting with your target audience. This Tech Smith article states that including a video on a landing page can increase conversion by 80%. 

LinkedIn Video types are:  

• Embedded videos: You embed content from the LinkedIn feed and distribute it online.

• LinkedIn native video: Users can record native videos on the platform and upload the video to their profiles. 

Linkedin video ads: These are sponsored company videos and you can create new video ads within Campaign Manager that will run for longer than a native ad, for up to 30 minutes. They appear in the LinkedIn feed

Get Networking!

Gone are the days when LinkedIn was used solely for people searching for jobs. We’ve just explored how LinkedIn has digitally transformed into a platform with multiple benefits and functions and shown how its capability has expanded beyond what even its co-founder Reid Hoffman could ever have imagined 20 years ago when LinkedIn humbly began in his living room. 

Today, LinkedIn’s vision is to create economic opportunity for every member of the global workforce. 

Its mission is to connect the world’s professionals to make them more productive and successful and it is now regarded as the most trusted platform on the planet for professionals with the number of users growing year on year since its inception. 

So let’s wrap it up with a few more facts about LinkedIn: 

LinkedIn continues to see record levels of engagement with 26% year-over-year growth in revenue. 

 LinkedIn Marketing Solutions’ revenue topped $5 billion for the financial year ending June 30th 2022. 

Marketers worldwide rate LinkedIn as the No. 1 lead generation platform in the world. 

And Bill Gates is the single most followed person on LinkedIn with 35,875,132 users. 

Actually, make that 35,875,133 – we just gave the tech whiz a follow. 😉