This chapter discusses using LinkedIn for marketing. It provides an overview of LinkedIn, its history and growth. Key points include that LinkedIn is primarily used by professionals to connect, find jobs and conduct business. The chapter reviews best practices for creating optimized Company and Showcase pages, including using images, videos and a variety of content in posts. It also discusses LinkedIn's algorithm, content strategy, posting regularly and testing posts. The goal is to engage the right target audience and drive leads through relevant, creative content.

1. Chapter 9: Marketing with LinkedIn
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
After reading this chapter, you should be able to
 Understand the business value of using LinkedIn for marketing
 Know how to create and optimize a LinkedIn account
 Understand the components of a LinkedIn post
 Implement a LinkedIn content strategy
INTRODUCTION TO LINKEDIN
LinkedIn is the world's largest professional network, with more than 500 million
users in over 200 countries worldwide (Miller). LinkedIn is where professionals
gather to stay connected and informed; apply for jobs; advance their careers; and
interact with businesses, recruiters, colleagues and customers from around the
world. The world’s professionals come to LinkedIn for industry news, career
training, expert advice, peer insights and recommendations, and to follow and
interact with influencers in the professional world.
LinkedIn was founded in 2002 by Stanford graduate Reid Hoffman after he gained
years of experience working in Silicon Valley at companies like Apple and PayPal.
Hoffman founded LinkedIn on the philosophy that people needed a platform to
take control of their professional lives, finding the right people and information to
conduct business.
By 2004, the platform reached 1 million professionals, and by 2007 the platform
reached 10 million professionals. In 2016, LinkedIn was acquired by Microsoft for
a total value of $26.2 billion, which is the largest acquisition made by Microsoft to
date.
The philosophy behind LinkedIn has not changed. It is the most popular social
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2. networking platform for job seekers and business professionals to connect and
engage with individuals and brands all around the world.
LINKEDIN BY THE NUMBERS
9.1 (Source: York)
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3.  Today there are over 60 million senior-level influencers, 40 million decision
makers, 10.7 million opinion leaders and 6.8 million c-level executives on
LinkedIn (LinkedIn).
 Due to the professional nature of the platform, many think that age
demographics will be older for LinkedIn; however, 34% of 18-29 year-olds and
33% of 30-49 year-olds use the platform, with more than 50% of its users being
college graduates (York).
 31% of online men and 27% of online women use LinkedIn (York).
 45% of adults on LinkedIn earn over $75,000 per year (York).
 The majority of LinkedIn users reside in the United States (133M+ users),
followed by India (39M+ users), Brazil (27M+ users), China (26M+ users) and the
United Kingdom (21M+ users) (York).
MARKETING WITH LINKEDIN
LinkedIn is not only a platform for personal branding and networking, it’s a great
platform for brands to build deep relationships with employees and customers and
to even gain valuable sales leads. With over 19 million company pages on
LinkedIn, the platform is the number one channel for B2B marketers to distribute
content (LinkedIn). In fact, 92% of B2B marketers leverage LinkedIn over all
other social platforms (LinkedIn). Seventy-seven percent of professionals expect to
engage directly with others to find professional content on LinkedIn, and brands
are taking full advantage of this mindset.
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4. 9.2
With the surge of fake news on social media, consumer trust in the media has
eroded in recent years. Today, many consumers are finding it harder to tell if a
piece of content is produced by a trustworthy source, which makes it increasingly
difficult for brands to gain the trust of potential customers. However, according to
a Business Insider study, LinkedIn is “undisputedly the most trusted platform” for
consumers, closely correlated with leading publishers like Wall Street Journal and
Forbes. For brands looking to gain consumer trust through content, LinkedIn is the
ideal platform to use.
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5. 9.3
LinkedIn is also considered a very effective tool for lead generation, as 80% of
social media B2B leads come from LinkedIn (LinkedIn). Brands have achieved
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6. great success with lead generation on the platform by activating their sales teams
through social selling tools like .
LinkedIn Sales Navigator
9.4
So what motivates LinkedIn members to engage with content on the platform?
Sixty percent of LinkedIn users engage with content that is relevant to them, while
57% of users state that they engage with content because it’s educational or
informative and 51% engage with content to stay on top of the latest brands. This is
good news for brands who are looking to use LinkedIn as an effective marketing
tool to reach customers.
CREATING A LINKEDIN COMPANY OR
SHOWCASE PAGE
A LinkedIn Company Page is the first place that LinkedIn users will visit to learn
about and interact with a company. Using a LinkedIn Company Page is a great
way to build brand awareness, engage with employees and customers, foster
engagement, and attract and interact with a target audience. A company page is
also a great place for professionals to gain insights into life inside a company and
to search for and apply for jobs posted directly to LinkedIn Company Pages.
Company pages can be created in more than 20 different languages.
To create a company page, follow steps 1 through 6 in the image below.
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7. 9.6 (Source: LinkedIn)
Once a company page has been created, the next step is to optimize the profile. A
well-optimized profile can boost the visibility of a company in the search results of
Google or other search engines. Companies can start by adding a cover image and
profile picture to the page. Companies should choose their logo as their profile
picture, as logo images receive six times more visits to company pages (LinkedIn),
appear when users search for a company and are featured on employees’ profiles.
It is recommended to use the same cover photo as are used on other social media
profiles to maintain brand consistency. Also, make sure that both the profile and
cover images are properly formatted for mobile devices.
The “about us” section of a LinkedIn company page is used to describe what the
company does and its specialties. Add a detailed description to this section, and
make sure to enter important information like the company website address,
headquarters location, year founded, company type, company size, and specialties
as seen in Apple’s LinkedIn Page below. Make sure to use relevant industry-related
keywords within the profile description to increase visibility through search
engines and the LinkedIn search function.
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8. 9.7 (Source: Apple LinkedIn)
9.8 (Source: Apple LinkedIn)
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9. LinkedIn Showcase Pages — extensions of LinkedIn Company Pages — allow
brands to create pages to promote specific business lines, products or company
initiatives. For example, a large enterprise company may be made up of multiple
business units with different target audiences for each. Instead of posting all
company-related content on a single company page to a wide audience, brands can
create showcase pages to target specific audiences with distinct messaging.
Amazon has twelve LinkedIn Showcase pages, from Amazon Services, to Amazon
Pay, Amazon Music, Amazon Education and more. Each showcase page features
differentiated content targeted at a unique market segment for Amazon.
9.9 (Amazon LinkedIn)
A LinkedIn Career Page is a page embedded within a company page that allows
companies to highlight job opportunities to potential candidates. LinkedIn Career
Pages use intelligent targeting to help companies attract top talent by showing
users personalized job recommendations based on interests, location and current
job titles.
Career pages provide candidates with authentic views into the culture of a
company through videos, photos and custom messaging on the page. Prospect
employees have the ability to connect with current employees who can share
insights about what it’s like to work at a company.
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10. Page analytics allow companies to understand how the page is performing and
even benchmark it against competitors. Watch the below video to see how Uber
and Undertone use LinkedIn Career Pages to attract the best talent in their
industries.
https://youtu.be/9vLWSC3jdgI
LinkedIn provides detailed analytics for company pages, including:
 Follower demographics and sources
 Reach and engagement metrics for posts
 Page traffic and sources
 Page views, unique visitors, page clicks
 Job views and number of job applications
COMPONENTS OF A LINKEDIN
COMPANY UPDATE
Post text
As is the case with other social media platforms, LinkedIn updates should be short
and to the point. As a best practice, post text should be 150 characters or fewer.
Call-to-action Link
Every single LinkedIn update should include a clear call-to-action link. In fact,
company updates containing links receive 45% more engagements than updates
without links (LinkedIn). The call-to-action link can include a link to an eBook,
blog post, case study, company webpage, third party article, video and more.
Like Facebook, LinkedIn allows for two types of links to be used within a post: a
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11. link within the text of a post and a built-in link with an image. Take a look below at
the two LinkedIn job posts from Walt Disney World. The first post features a link
within the text of the post itself, while the second post features a built-in link.
9.10 (Source: Walt Disney World LinkedIn)
Images
Today, images are the biggest factor for engagement. In fact, images on LinkedIn
generally result in a 98% higher comment rate (LinkedIn). Every LinkedIn update
should include an eye-catching image that will stand out among other posts in a
news feed. The ideal image size is 1200x627 pixels. Images should well represent
the content of the post and should always include company branding themes and
colors for brand recognition and consistency, as shown in examples from American
Express OPEN and MailChimp:
9.11 (Source: American Express OPEN LinkedIn)
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12. 9.12 (Source: MailChimp LinkedIn)
Edit and use high-quality photos to increase visual appeal and use real people or
unexpected images (see the Zix Corporation image below). Avoid stock photos and
keep text over images light.
9.13 (Source: Zix Corporation LinkedIn)
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13. Videos
In 2018, LinkedIn released a native video function for company pages, allowing
them to directly upload videos via mobile or desktop. These videos auto play
within the LinkedIn newsfeed, leading to increased engagement and views. The
LinkedIn algorithm also favors native videos, placing them higher and more often
in the main news feed.
Previous to the option of including native videos, the only way for companies to
use video on LinkedIn was to share a YouTube or Vimeo link as shown in the
below post from . LinkedIn still allows for links to third party video sites;
Lenovo
however, when given the choice, it’s best to upload native videos, as shown in the
Hootsuite post below, for better user experience and increased engagement.
9.14 (Source: Lenovo LinkedIn)
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14. 9.15 (Source: Hootsuite LinkedIn)
LINKEDIN ALGORITHM
The LinkedIn algorithm is designed to make its users’ home feeds more personal
by showing content that is most relevant to each user. Unlike other social media
platforms, LinkedIn is a professional networking site, so the algorithm will favor
posts from brands related to jobs and content related to its users’ careers. There is a
four-step algorithm process for every LinkedIn post:
1. Once a post is created, the content is scored from a quality perspective and is
automatically placed into one of three categories: spam, low-quality or clear. The
goal is for every post to be placed in the clear category.
2. From there, posts will be sent to a small selection of a company’s followers
to gauge the popularity of the post, based on likes, shares and comments (shares
are ranked higher than likes).
3. If the post is very popular among the small audience, it will be promoted
within the news feed to a larger audience.
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15. 4. Posts are then viewed by LinkedIn employees who determine whether the
posts should be sent to more people or promoted in LinkedIn’s “trending content”
section of the newsfeed.
It is important for brands to recognize the type of content that LinkedIn looks for,
as well the type of content their target audience wants to engage with in the
platform, and adopt a suitable LinkedIn content strategy.
LINKEDIN CONTENT STRATEGY
Post Relevant Content
When LinkedIn users were asked what their top reasons were for following a
company, staying informed on the industry and staying up-to-date on the latest
news from the company were the top two selections.
9.16
Digging a little deeper into the topics that drive engagement among users on
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16. LinkedIn, industry trends/news-, tips/best practices- and jobs/skills-related content
top the list.
9.17
Furthermore, 44% of LinkedIn survey respondents state that the last piece of
content they enjoyed was inspirational and straight-to-the-point.
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17. 9.18
Post a Variety of Content
Professional audiences on LinkedIn are seeking educational industry-related
content that helps them become more productive and successful. “B2B prospects
engage with 7 pieces of content on average before making a purchase decision,”
according to LinkedIn. To keep audiences engaged and to drive valuable leads,
LinkedIn recommends providing a good mix of content, including:
 eBooks
 SlideShare presentations
 Infographics
 Blog posts
 Case studies
 Third-party industry articles or reports
 Videos
 Whitepapers
 Tip sheets
 Customer success stories
 Product how-tos
 Webinars
 Podcasts
 Events
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18.  Guides
When deciding which content to post and when, brands should ask themselves the
following questions:
 What is our company an expert in?
 Who is the content for?
 What are our audience’s drivers of engagement?
 Where is our audience in the buyer’s journey?
 How does our content make our audience more productive and successful?
 Where is there an untapped opportunity?
Keep Posts Short
Posts should be short (150 characters or fewer) and entice followers to click to
learn more.
Be Creative
In order for a brand’s post to stand out in the newsfeed, it needs to have stopping
power. Ask thought-provoking questions or make posts personal by calling out a
specific audience of followers. Using humor and creativity can really help brands
drive engagement. Take a look at the below post from Digg. Does it have stopping
power?
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19. 9.19 (Source: Digg LinkedIn)
Post Regularly and at Optimal Times
LinkedIn recommends posting updates on company pages at least once per day.
Since LinkedIn is for professionals, and professionals tend to use the platform
during working hours, the best times to post are typically during the weekday.
Research from HubSpot states that the best days to post content on LinkedIn are
Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays, early in the morning, during lunchtime and
early evening (Fleming). Tuesday between 10 and 11 a.m. is also a great time to
post (Fleming). Brands should think about their target audience and when members
of that audience are more likely to be online and adjust posting schedules
accordingly.
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20. 9.20
Follow the 4-1 Rule
Although many users follow brands on LinkedIn to receive company-related
updates and news, it is recommended to have a healthy balance between
promotional and non-promotional posts.
The 4-1 rule states that for every single piece of self-promotional content a brand
shares, that brand should share four pieces of content from others.
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21. 9.21 (Source: LinkedIn)
Think Mobile
The majority of LinkedIn users are accessing the social networking platform on
mobile devices. When creating and posting content, brands must think mobile first.
Tips include keeping text below 140 characters and images 1200x627 pixels,
making sure to check how they appear on a mobile device before posting.
9.22 (Source: Microsoft)
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22. Use A/B Testing
A good best practice before posting any content is to conduct A/B testing. A/B
testing can be used to test different headlines, background colors, stats vs quotes,
post lengths, images, call-to-action links and more. Take a look at the below two
images from LinkedIn Marketing Solutions. Which do you think performed better?
9.23 (Source: LinkedIn)
If you guessed Version B, you are correct! The image of the person saw a 160%
click-through rate compared to the image without the person (LinkedIn Marketing
Solutions).
Now let’s look at another post, testing different background colors. Which do you
think performed better?
9.24
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23. If you guessed Version A, you are correct! The post with the darker background
saw 32% more clicks than the white background (LinkedIn Marketing Solutions).
How about the use of statistics in posts? Which version below do you think
performed better?
9.25
Version B — with the stat — saw a 37% greater click-through rate and 162% more
impressions (LinkedIn Marketing Solutions). By providing the statistics up front in
the post, readers do not have to guess what they will learn when they click on the
link and are therefore more likely to click.
Now let’s experiment with color for call-to-action links. Which call-to-action link
below do you think performed best?
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24. 9.26
If you answered blue you are correct!
9.27
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25. A/B testing can help brands reveal even the small changes that can greatly impact
the performance of posts. Although some of the above examples provided by
LinkedIn include a few changing variables, a recommended best practice to follow
is to change only one element in each asset in order to isolate the reason for
audiences choosing one option over the other. With high consumer expectations
and mass personalization, brands can’t afford to not A/B test their content for
maximum engagement.
Leverage LinkedIn Groups
LinkedIn Groups are for professionals with similar interests to share content, find
answers, post and view jobs and make business contacts. Companies can create
LinkedIn groups on a variety of topics to engage with specific target markets.
Today, companies create groups for specific product lines, business units,
demographics or even events. Individuals can find and join groups in order to
explore and engage in conversations around specific topics. The below video
showcases how commercial banking company HSBC created a business and trade
group on LinkedIn to deliver relevant content to professionals.
https://youtu.be/TPfB900SX2k
Mobilize Employees
LinkedIn is a great tool for increasing the reach of company-related content by
leveraging the power of employees sharing such content with their own networks.
In fact, “[nine] of the top 10 brands with the most followers on LinkedIn have at
least 60% of their employees on LinkedIn” (LinkedIn). In addition, the more
company page followers a brand has, the higher that page will rank in LinkedIn
search results.
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26. Leverage Executives and Subject Matter
Experts
Due to the professional nature of the platform, many CEOs, executives, sales
professionals and subject matter experts have become thought leaders and
influencers for the companies they work for. Note that, 82% of consumers are more
likely to trust a company whose CEO and leadership teams are on social media,
and 77% of consumers are more likely to purchase from that company (Go Gulf).
9.28 (Source: Go Gulf)
Brands can leverage influence by first identifying a list of executives and subject
matter experts from within the company that are already active on LinkedIn. Next,
companies can educate these individuals on LinkedIn best practices and encourage
them to share the following types of content on LinkedIn:
 Company-related updates: press announcements, new product releases,
awards, events, behind-the-scenes content, employee appreciation and more
 Expert opinions
 Industry perspectives and trends
 Leadership and personal experiences
 In-the-moment analysis of events, news or trending topics
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27. Executives can take advantage of LinkedIn’s publishing feature, which allows
users to publish long-form content such as blogs or articles directly to the LinkedIn
platform. Note that LinkedIn’s publishing feature is not open for companies, only
for LinkedIn individual members. LinkedIn influencers (founder
Richard Branson
of Virgin Group), and (CEO of Microsoft) utilize LinkedIn’s long-
Satya Nadella
form publishing platform to write personal and company-related articles, further
increasing the brand awareness of the companies they represent.
9.29 (Source: Richard Branson LinkedIn)
9.30 (Source: Nadella LinkedIn)
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28. The CMO of Unilever, Keith Weed, shares why he disbanded Unilever’s CSR
department in an open and authentic way utilizing LinkedIn’s publishing platform.
9.31
(Source: Keith Weed LinkedIn)
Leverage influencers: In 2012, LinkedIn created its own influencer program
featuring thought-provoking discussions and articles (blogs) on a wide variety of
issues contributed from a pool of over 500 C-level executives, world leaders,
entrepreneurs and philanthropists who use LinkedIn. Posts from these influencers
receive on average more than 25,000 views, 300 likes and 100 comments over
regular LinkedIn users. Companies whose CEOs or executives are part of the
LinkedIn Influencer program can leverage their accounts to promote company
messaging.
For example, at the time of this book’s writing, Microsoft CEO and LinkedIn
influencer has over 4.5 million followers. His posts can average
Satya Nadella
anywhere from 5,000-100,000 likes at a time. Microsoft, with around 5 million
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29. followers on LinkedIn, can leverage Nadella’s popularity by sharing his posts on
its company page and having him promote key company messages.
9.32 (Source: Satya Nadella LinkedIn)
LinkedIn’s influencer program is by invitation only, so companies cannot apply to
have their CEOs or executives as an influencer. However, bands can leverage other
LinkedIn influencers by building relationships with them by engaging with their
posts, sharing their content or collaborating with them on a post, article or video.
Brands should start by identifying influencers within their industry to engage with.
Brands can follow these industry influencers to engage with their posts and
determine which topics are driving the most interest among their target markets.
Utilize SlideShare: SlideShare (owned by LinkedIn) is the world’s largest
community for sharing presentations. Today it is a top destination for professional
content, with over 18 million uploads in 40 content categories (Slideshare). Nearly
4 million people visit SlideShare every day (LinkedIn). SlideShare can help brands
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30. with brand awareness, content distribution, website traffic, lead generation, SEO
value, targeting and more. Brands can leverage SlideShare by:
 Sharing presentations, videos, infographics,PDFs and other documents with
their LinkedIn networks
 Uploading portfolios, conference talks, marketing/sales presentations and
more
 Embedding videos in presentations and adding audio to make webinars
 (LinkedIn)
The image below features nine tips from LinkedIn on how brands can effectively
use SlideShare.
9.33 (Source: LinkedIn)
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31. LinkedIn Advertising: LinkedIn offers a variety of advertising solutions for brands
to achieve their marketing objectives:
 Sponsored Content
 SponsoredInMail
 Programmatic Buying
 Dynamic Ads
 Text Ads
 Video Ads
We will cover advertising with LinkedIn later in this textbook, but it will be
important for brands to incorporate LinkedIn advertising into their social media
marketing strategies.
LOOKING AHEAD
Reaching over 500 million users, LinkedIn is a top social networking tool for
professionals and brands. It’s one of the top tools for job seekers to find and apply
to jobs and engage with recruiters and hiring managers. The popularity of
LinkedIn’s influencer community combined with the growth of long-form written
content makes LinkedIn a great place to follow and engage with business
influencers. Today, LinkedIn continues to invest in expanding its social media
features such as peer to peer messaging, video creation and enhancement tools like
Snapchat-style filters and video text overlays. With these expanded features, more
brands are expected to increase the use of LinkedIn to interact with targeted
audiences in more engaging ways.
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