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If you are building your digital marketing strategy for 2020, then it’s time to integrate LinkedIn into your advertising budget.

Even if you don’t use LinkedIn regularly, you can no longer ignore the fact that the social network has slowly became the most important social network for professionals.

LinkedIn Who?

The professional social network LinkedIn was launched in May 2003. LinkedIn allows users to upload personal profiles that serve as online resumes, which include the users’ work experience, education and skills. LinkedIn users can connect with other users and create professional and business relationships, as well as to endorse their friends’ skills, recruit employees and find jobs.

In addition to private users, LinkedIn also enables businesses to create company pages to display their services and products, connect employees and advertise job openings, if there are any.

Over the years, LinkedIn has added more services, paid features and advertising options. By 2020, LinkedIn is ranked as the top professional social network, with growing revenue and an increased number of active users and businesses.

Here are some impressive LinkedIn stats:

• There are about 660 million registered users from 200 different countries.
• There are more than 30 million company pages.
• Every second, 2 new users join LinkedIn.
• Every day, users upload 2 million posts, articles and videos to LinkedIn.

Although in the beginning LinkedIn kept a low profile, especially in Israel, its steady growth continues to amaze. For example, by the end of 2016, then LinkedIn had 467 million users; two years later, the number of users reached 590 million, and by January 2020 – 660 million. We’re talking about a growth in 70 million users a year!

For these reasons and others (mainly the users’ level of professionalism), you cannot ignore LinkedIn’s potential as an advertising platform.

Who should advertise on LinkedIn?

B2B Marketers –

Did you know? 94% of B2B marketers use LinkedIn to distribute their content, while 92% of them include LinkedIn in their marketing strategy. So, if your target audience is other businesses, LinkedIn is the ultimate advertising platform for you. LinkedIn allows you to target by job titles, industries, company names and affiliation to professional groups. These targeting options improve the effectiveness of the campaigns.

Companies that recruit workers-

If your company is currently recruiting employees – LinkedIn is the best advertising platform. With its ability to target users by their job title and experience, you can accurately reach the most suitable candidates for your job. In addition, you can use LinkedIn Recruiter, which is consider an efficient tool for job posting.

Targeted Services and Products Promotion-

Every company that wants to promote its services for specific audiences, based on their job experience, profession and industry, could use LinkedIn advertising platform. The professional-based targeting is LinkedIn strongest quality and its unique advantage comparing to other advertising platforms. So, if the professional context is your main target – advertise on LinkedIn.

It’s important to clarify that advertising on LinkedIn doesn’t come cheap. Average CPC on LinkedIn ranges between 6$ and 9$, a significantly higher cost comparing to Facebook and Google Ads. It means that you’ll have to allocate a higher media budget than usual, and the cost per conversion is expected to grow accordingly. Also, if your business is based in Israel, you will have to take in account additional costs for foreign currency exchange and higher rates.

So, why should you still insist on LinkedIn? Because you pay for quality.

• Leads’ quality – Researches show that the leads that arrive from LinkedIn are quality and long-term clients. So, even if the initial investment was high, its return is worthwhile in the long run.
• Employees’ quality – It has been estimated that only 8% of Facebook users update and share their job titles in their profile, while it’s the first information that LinkedIn users share when they join the network, and continue to update frequently. So, if you have job openings and you’re looking for the best candidates, you will be able to find them on LinkedIn.
• Engagement quality – Users said that the content published on LinkedIn has more value, so they tend to be more engaged, to read, share and comment. Since LinkedIn is a professional platform, the users expect – and usually get – professional guides and articles. Bottom line, if you match the content to the users’ expectations and interests, you’re guaranteed to enjoy high-quality engagement.

So, now that we’ve convinced you to try LinkedIn advertising, you should do it correctly. But before you start advertising you should prepare by improving the company’s profile organic presence.

4 tips to help you build your brand’s reputation on LinkedIn:

1. Start with your personal profile

Even when the goal is to advertise your business, it’s important to have an updated and professional personal profile. At the end of the day, people are doing business with other people, and they will always want to learn more about the person behind the services. That’s why the personal profile of the company’s owner and executives is no less important. This tip is especially important when recruiting employees – your potential candidates will want to check their possible colleagues to see if they could fit in.

So, what should you do? Make sure to update your profile picture and your job title, add a short bio, and describe your current position and your job experience. Don’t forget to include your skills, and to update your profile occasionally according to your career development.

2. Create an effective Company Page

The Company Page is the brand’s personal profile, and its goal is to allow visitors to learn about the company, its services, employees and the content it shares. If you don’t have a Company Page yet, we suggest starting by updating all the information, connecting employees and only then – start sharing content consistently.

Afterwards, when the page has both information and content, start with the advertising. You don’t want visitors to reach an empty Company Page.

If you already have a Company Page, review it and make sure that it is updated and meets with the brand’s messaging.

3. Optimize for Search

Visitors often search companies by service and not by the company name, so optimization for search can increase exposure. Similar to other search engines, you can optimize the content to improve the Company Page visibility and search results rankings.

Here are 3 ways to optimize your LinkedIn Company Page:

Include keywords: make sure that the Company Page includes relevant keywords that describe your services and your area of expertise. Aim to target the queries asked by visitors who may search your services.

Upload relevant content: one of the certain ways to improve page’s quality is by adding quality content frequently.

Add links: Link to the Company’s Page from you company’s website, blog or any other digital asset. In addition, make sure that the company’s employees have updated the workplace on their personal profile, that way a link will be automatically added to the Company Page.

4. Add Followers

When LinkedIn users follow your Company, all the updates and articles shared on your page will appear on their feed. Then, more followers means higher exposure. There are several ways to add followers to your business page:

• Start with the company’s employees – make sure that all employees follow the page and ask them to share the content.
• Promote the page – request customers and business partners to follow the company’s page. You can add a button on your email signature with a link to the LinkedIn page.
• Add “Follow” buttons to your websites – make sure that your website’s include links to the LinkedIn page along with the other social networks.

Now that your profile is updated and your Company’s Page is active, you can start advertising and include LinkedIn in your marketing strategy. Before your first campaign, remember to define your target audience and the campaign’s goals (whether lead generation, sales, website traffic, etc.).

Contact us if you need help with LinkedIn advertising.

Good Luck!