Is Linkedin the right social channel for your business?

In this Social Channel Selection for Revenue growth series, we are dissecting each major social channel to help you assess whether it is the best place to position your business to connect with customers and grow your revenue.

Time is at a premium for the average Entrepreneur, you need to be strategic about where you invest your resources whether that be time, money, or staff. Joining every available social channel is counterproductive and leveraging the wrong platform poorly can harm your brand reputation and image. Whether you run an Etsy Store, an e-commerce website, a service business, or all of the above, you need to be strategic about how you select your social channels.

Is Linkedin the right social channel for my business?

The Stats:

Linkedin caters to supporting professionals in their careers whether that be through recruitment, training or Networking. Only 9% of users visit Linkedin more than once every day, 12% visit daily and just 23% visit twice a week.

Age & Gender

• 43% of users are women

• 57% of users are men

• 17% of 18–24-year-olds use LinkedIn

• 44% of 25–30-year-olds use LinkedIn

• 37% of 30–49-year-olds use LinkedIn

• 24% of 50–64-year-olds use LinkedIn

• 11% of 65+-year-olds use LinkedIn

Regional breakdown

• Linkedin is most popular in the US with 160 million users.

• There are 211 million users in Europe, the most being 28M in the UK

• 33% of those living in an urban area use LinkedIn

• 30% of those living in a suburban area use LinkedIn

• 10% of those living in a rural area use LinkedIn

Education & Income

• 9% of those with high school education or less use LinkedIn

• 26% of those with some college education use LinkedIn

• 51% of those with more than college education use LinkedIn

• 10% of those making less than $30k use LinkedIn

• 26% of those making $30k–74,999 use LinkedIn

• 49% of those making more than $75k use LinkedIn

Devices & Usage

• Over 30 million companies are on Linkedin

• Sponsored Inmail has a 52% open rate

• 57% of traffic comes from mobile

• The engagement has increased 50% year over year as Linkedin's algorithm prioritises content from connections. This creates rooms for brands to leverage internal spokespeople and thought leaders to capitalise on their existing connection to spread messaging and build brand awareness.

• 30% of brand engagement comes from the employees of that brand

• 4/5 people on Linkedin drive business decisions

• 94% of B2B Marketers use Linkedin as a content marketing channel

Source: (Sprout Social, Hootsuite Pew Research & CNBC.com).

What can Linkedin do for my business?

• This is a powerful engine for driving B2B content to engage the decision-makers on your target company list

• Perfect for networking and recruitment, also brand advocacy among employees

• Does not support e-commerce well

• Small but niche for professional services or products

• Centred around relationship building and encourages direct messaging via sponsored In Mail.

Now that you've got some insight into Linkedin, you should assess whether this works for your business. Think specifically about your audience and customer. Do the above demographics match up and does it sound like it can help you meet your specific business objectives.

And finally, how do I select an impactful channel?

1. Narrow down which social channels you chose to be a part of, be selective about what channels serve your business best.

2. Avoid copying competitors and peers using whatever channels they use.

3. Play to your strengths and think about what channels you can create the best content for. If you're a great writer and your brand has a strong tone, perhaps you can leverage text-based posts on a word centred platform the best.

4. Go strictly where your customers are, do proper market research (surveys, reports) to find out the truth around this, then prioritise the channels they are most active on.

5. Don't simply join the most popular or trendy social channels, or the ones people seem to be talking about the most. Again, prioritise where your audience goes to be entertained, informed, shop, connect and learn.

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Unsure about where to go from here?

Here at Superlative we've worked with hundreds of businesses, just like yours. We specialise in helping them to take their business online and generate more revenue than ever before. Speak to us about Consulting and coaching, Web design and Marketing Strategy services or try our Courses and Workbooks to empower you and your staff to generate more revenue than ever before.

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