LinkedIn Inbound Marketing

Business Insider also did some research into the efficacy of LinkedIn marketing.

Here are a few of the key takeaways from the BI Intelligence report:

• LinkedIn is actually more popular than Twitter among U.S. adults. 22% of internet users 18 and older have used it, compared to the 19% who have used Twitter.
• Unsurprisingly for a job-oriented social network, LinkedIn’s most notable demographic skew is based on education. Thirty-eight percent of college-educated adult web users are on LinkedIn, compared to only 16% of those with some college education.
• The social network’s sweet spot is among 30- to 49-year-olds— old enough to have their careers on track — with 27% of U.S. internet users in this age bracket using LinkedIn.
• In general, LinkedIn has an older user base. LinkedIn is also the only top social network to feature higher penetration rates in the 50-to-64 age bracket than in the 18-to-29 age group.
• LinkedIn skews toward men, it’s used by 24% of male internet users versus 19% of female internet users.

They compiled many graphs in their report, but this one shows the percentage of users in the US that have used LinkedIn:

Do you remember when your mother told to beware of anything that was ‘too good to be true – because usually they aren’t’? These figures almost fall in to the ‘too good to be true’ league, so immediately they might make you suspicious but when you think about it logically, they could be totally accurate.

LinkedIn is a valuable platform of professional, well educated, mature users and (unlike the vast majority of other social networking platforms) is particularly well used by men. Mature user and social media is not a common pairing of success, but in the age of niche marketing, LinkedIn appeals to business people – especially the more mature movers and shakers of the industry rather than the masses.

Online marketing is dominating the sales world and one pivotal point in digital marketing is social media. The rising generation grew up with the internet and networking platforms so it is as natural to them as watching television or driving a car to school. Social media is their ‘norm’. Although very few of this generation have infiltrated their way right into the highest echelons of management, they are introducing the ‘value add’ of social networking sites in a business scenario. Due to the lack of reports on menu options and duck faced selfies, LinkedIn contains many of the classic values that appeal to managers and professionals and they are leveraging this network as it was designed to do.

Jeff Bullas reported these statistics:

LinkedIn facts and statistics

So what are some LinkedIn facts and what was also revealed when they announced their 3rd quarter results in 2014?

LinkedIn started on May 5, 2003

It went public in May 19, 2011

LinkedIn has 332 million members

2 new users join every second

42 million unique mobile visitors per month. This stat is up from 29 million a year before (This is a 45% increase in just 12 months )

Net revenue for the quarter was $568 million which is a big increase from the Q3 result in 2013  of $393 million

107 million users are in the USA alone

LinkedIn’s user goal is 3 billion registered users

Average time a user spends on LinkedIn is 17 minutes per month

25 million LinkedIn profiles are viewed every day

One in three professionals on the planet are on LinkedIn

You can increase your linkedIn views by 11 times by including a photo

41% of users visit Linkedin via mobile

The average number of connections on Linkedin is 930

There were 28 billion Linkedin profile views in Q3, 2014

13% of millennials use LinkedIn

LinkedIn’s percentage of social sharing is only 4%

39 million students and recent grads are on LinkedIn

56% of members are male

44% of members are female

30,000 long form posts are published on Linkedin every week

41% of millionaires use LinkedIn

13% of LinkedIn users don’t have a Facebook account

59% of LinkedIn users don’t visit Twitter

LinkedIn users spend 26% of their time on LinkedIn using the mobile app

We could choose any one of these stats and show you that a completely different kind of social media user is active on LinkedIn, but what it boils down to is that LinkedIn is a business platform, used by business people for the purpose of growing their company. It then stands to reason that LinkedIn is the platform to market to businesses on as its where the decision makers hang out.

Many consider LinkedIn a glorified recruitment agency, but it can do so much more than that. LinkedIn is a professional social media network and as it grows (it currently has 259 million users with a sustained growth rate of 38% year on year) it is refining its core services. What started as little more than an eBusiness card is now advertising space, company newsletter, business people finder, talent scout, brochure and brand development all in one which makes it indispensable, but its crowning achievement is that it is all of these things – in the arena where the big business are. Your company is in front of the people that matter and people who are looking for exactly what you have.

Facebook marketing, like all the other social platforms, is often catering to a large audience resulting in a less refined marketing campaign. It simply has to appeal to too many marketing personas in too many locations all at once. LinkedIn is a well-developed niche platform that consists of people thoroughly converted to solid networking principles looking to grow their businesses by forging partnerships. Half the sales work is already done for you.

If you haven’t looked at LinkedIn with a marketing eye recently, it’s about time you did.