There’s simply no better place to be than LinkedIn if your customers are businesses.
With over 1 billion members — including Fortune 500 executives, industry experts, and thought leaders — LinkedIn is the world’s premier professional social network and a B2B marketing goldmine.
In this guide, we’ll look at how this platform shapes your marketing efforts, and show you some best practices that will help you grow your brand and win more customers — including 13 tactics you can start using today.
Here are the key LinkedIn marketing topics we'll cover:
To start, let's examine why LinkedIn is a worthwhile social media platform — especially for B2B businesses.
There are four major reasons to consider starting or expanding your marketing efforts on LinkedIn:
The platform is almost tailor-made to support B2B marketing, helping you stand out as an expert in your field, reach highly targeted audiences, and develop strong community that can translate to client and partner relationships.
While LinkedIn is the place to B2B (it's even their advertising slogan), its ability to platform executives and employees as thought leaders can still be useful for B2C businesses and nonprofits to increase awareness of their brand.
With a basic, free LinkedIn account, you can set up and manage a company page alongside your personal page. You'll get access to the all the posting and community features, and you can establish an ads account to start running paid advertising.
LinkedIn also offers a few paid plans that enable advanced sales, marketing, and recruitment tools. These plans are known as LinkedIn Premium and LinkedIn Sales Navigator.
Here's the paid plan breakdown:
Whether LinkedIn Premium is worth it depends on your situation.
LinkedIn has 1 billion users worldwide. Here are a few audience stats to help you put this massive network of professionals into context:
But how effective is LinkedIn at generating leads?
Most LinkedIn members log on to the platform specifically to network, further their careers, or grow their businesses. This means when you market your business on LinkedIn, you’re speaking to a captive audience.
But don’t think you can get away with posting anything as long as it’s business-related. While LinkedIn members tend to be receptive to marketing messages — and the platform is reporting record levels of engagement — LinkedIn members have very specific preferences when it comes to content.
As is the case on every other social media platform, you benefit from having a robust and varied content strategy that features different content types and formats.
Your LinkedIn content strategy is a blend of social media marketing and content marketing. Social media marketing emphasizes engagement — posting content that encourages likes, comments, and shares. On the other hand, content marketing focuses on delivering relevant content that meets your audience's needs, such as blog posts, how-to guides, ebooks, and case studies.
To succeed with LinkedIn marketing, you must combine these approaches to craft high-value, expertise-driven content that entertains and engages a knowledgeable, professional audience.
So what type of content works well on LinkedIn? Here are some of the top content formats to try.
Need something to post right away? Check out our list of 20 LinkedIn post ideas for some inspiration you can immediately translate into content.
Zero-click content on LinkedIn refers to posts that deliver all their value directly within the platform, without requiring users to click on external links to access more information. This type of content is designed to be self-contained, offering insights, tips, or information right in the post itself. Examples of zero-click content include:
While you may sacrifice clicks to external links, this approach usually results in richer interactions like comment threads and more followers. The immediate value you provide encourages deeper engagement, making your content stand out in users' feeds.
Beyond engagement, zero-click content positions you as a thought leader in your industry. By consistently sharing insights around a specific content pillar, you end up building a strong personal brand that resonates with a professional audience. This ups your credibility and makes it easier to attract clients who are looking for expertise in that particular area.
A LinkedIn carousel is a slideshow-style feature that lets you share multiple visuals in a single post. They're one of the most popular types of zero-click content on the platforms.
Whether it’s text-based slides or infographics, carousels make your content more engaging by adding a visual element that encourages interaction.
Carousels are like mini-presentations that let you share more information than a typical text post, and since you upload them as PDFs, they’re even downloadable for easy reference.
Whether you’re marketing for a B2B brand, or building your personal platform, carousels are a versatile tool to enhance your social content strategy. If you're advertising on LinkedIn, you can also create LinkedIn carousel ads, which give you more real estate for visuals and copy than a typical single-image ad.
LinkedIn has launched and subsequently retired a few video features since 2020, but they're not giving up on this format yet. In fact, LinkedIn is rolling out in-feed suggested video carousels to drive more engagement on video uploads. (That means they're probably prioritizing video in the algorithm.)
With short-form video leading the conversation on Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube, it's not hard to imagine it taking off on LinkedIn. The question remains whether the LinkedIn's professional audience wants to engage with this type of content.
You can upload videos up to 15 minutes long when uploading from desktop and 10 minutes long when uploading from the LinkedIn mobile app. This means you can test a variety of video lengths to see if short-form or long-form video works best for you.
You can also broadcast live videos. When you broadcast the video is automatically recorded and shared on your page, so your followers can see it even if they’re not around while you’re live. The catch is that you need to get verified before you can start broadcasting.
At any rate, if you already post educational content on other social media platforms, it's absolutely worth it to cross-post it to LinkedIn.
There are two types of content you should avoid as much as possible on LinkedIn: posts with external links and engagement bait.
Like any other social media network, it’s in LinkedIn’s best interest to keep its users on the platform for as long as possible. That's why LinkedIn’s algorithm punishes posts that contain external links. These posts might get fewer views, which translates to lower engagement.
LinkedIn’s growing popularity and effectiveness for lead generation has inspired "growth hackers" to find ways to cheat the algorithm and boost engagement.
LinkedIn is onto this type of content — it won't recommend content that’s designed purely to elicit a response.
In particular, LinkedIn’s algorithm punishes:
There are tons of metrics you can track in LinkedIn, whether your and individual or a business with a company page. These include the usuals, like engagement metrics, and some stand-out extras, like in-depth follower and visitor information.
So far, we’ve talked about the audience and what captures their attention (and makes them click the Ignore button). But how do you make the most of your LinkedIn presence?
Here are our top tips.
You should create your company page for three reasons:
You should keep your LinkedIn company page consistent with the rest of your social media presence, otherwise visitors might not realize it’s you.
Use the same banner and logo on all your socials — this should have a ratio of 5.9:1. For instance, 2360 X 400 pixels — and try to keep the language consistent, too. While LinkedIn is a professional network, that’s not a license to be boring or forgettable.
The company innocent drinks, for instance, makes it a point to be as approachable on LinkedIn as it is on Twitter or Facebook.
You should also fill out the About section of your profile as comprehensively as possible.
Explain what you do in plain language so it’s easier for prospective customers to understand, and use keywords and phrases they’re likely to use when searching for a product or service like yours.
Don’t forget to add a link to your website — and a link to your LinkedIn page on your website. This will likely give your search rankings a boost, which is always helpful.
While you definitely need a LinkedIn company page, posts from individual profiles usually get more engagement.
For this reason, your staff — not just your C-suite, but employees at all levels — should be an integral part of your LinkedIn marketing strategy.
There are two key ways you can involve your staff in your LinkedIn marketing efforts.
Brands that are successful on LinkedIn invariably have executives who are very active on the platform.
Virgin Group CEO Richard Branson, for instance, regularly shares his hard-won knowledge with his 19.7 + million followers. Similarly, Ellevest CEO Sallie Krawcheck is always striving to educate her 2.7+ million followers so they can get better control of their financial health.
When executives showcase their knowledge and expertise, they position themselves as authorities in their fields. And if your brand’s leaders come across as people who know what they’re talking about, your company will appear more trustworthy to prospective customers — a safe pair of hands.
The best publicity your brand can get is happy employees who are invested in your success. Brands with engaged staff get eight times more views on their company pages, four times more followers, and four times more job applications.
You can get staff involved in your LinkedIn marketing campaigns in several ways:
To harness the power of LinkedIn, optimizing your profile and company page for search engines is essential. Start by incorporating relevant keywords throughout your profile and company page, including in your headline, summary, experience, and skills sections. This will increase your visibility in search results when users look for professionals or companies in your industry.
Additionally, ensure that your profile and page have a clear and compelling description of your expertise, products, and services. Include links to your website and other relevant online platforms.
Lastly, regularly update your profile and business page with fresh content to maintain an active and engaging online presence. This could include industry articles, blog posts, or company updates.
We shouldn’t have to say this, but you can’t succeed at social media marketing unless you’re consistent. For your followers to trust you and, eventually, buy from you, you need to build a relationship with them.
LinkedIn content tends to have a longer lifespan compared to social media networks like Twitter, which means you can get away with posting less frequently. Experts recommend posting two to three times a week on personal profiles and once a week on your company page.
More importantly, engage, engage, and then engage some more.
Replying promptly to comments makes your posts more visible, which means more people will see them, react, and comment.
You should also spend time engaging with other people’s content, without being salesy. Posting meaningful comments that contribute to the discussion will help you build connections and grow your network.
To fully leverage the power of LinkedIn, it’s crucial to connect with decision-makers in your industry. Here’s how you can do it:
By building a network of decision-makers, you gain access to valuable insights, potential collaborations, and business opportunities, enhancing your chances of success on the platform and beyond.
LinkedIn offers powerful tools for finding highly targeted leads and connections. So leverage its advanced search functionality to narrow down your search criteria based on industry, job title, location, and other relevant filters. This enables you to identify individuals who match your target audience or potential business partners.
Once you have identified prospects, reach out to them with personalized messages or connection requests, highlighting how your products or services can benefit them.
LinkedIn lets members follow hashtags, so using them in your posts will make it easier for the people you’re targeting to find your content.
For best results:
Or, for a more user-friendly alternative, use Loomly Hashtag Suggestions. This will show you relevant and trending hashtags to consider and lets you add them to your post at the click of a button.
One of the valuable features LinkedIn offers is the ability to see who’s viewed your profile. Checking out who’s viewed your LinkedIn profile can provide valuable opportunities for engagement. This way, you can identify potential leads, clients, or collaborators. It allows you to reach out to them with personalized messages, expressing your interest and exploring potential connections or business opportunities.
What’s more, understanding who is viewing your profile can help you gauge the effectiveness of your networking efforts and adjust your strategy accordingly.
Newsletters on LinkedIn allow you to share valuable, serialized content directly with your network and followers. This is a great way to post more in-depth content that drives credibility and trust, and converts more readers into followers.
If you already have an email newsletter, this tactic is a no-brainer. Simply republish your email content as an article for your LinkedIn newsletter and start building an additional subscriber list. You can also interact with readers via the post comments — a benefit you don't get with regular email.
Joining targeted LinkedIn groups is a strategic way to expand your professional network and engage with individuals who share common interests or are part of your target audience.
Start by searching for relevant groups based on your industry, profession, or specific topics of interest. Join groups that align with your marketing goals and actively participate by sharing valuable insights, asking questions, and engaging in discussions.
When using LinkedIn for marketing purposes, it’s important to avoid hard sells and focus on building relationships instead. LinkedIn is a professional networking platform where individuals seek meaningful connections and valuable insights.
So instead of pushing sales pitches, engage with your audience and cultivate relationships by actively participating in conversations, responding to comments, and offering helpful advice.
Investing in LinkedIn ads is worthwhile because you get access to a highly targeted and engaged audience, including decision-makers, professionals, and industry leaders. Advanced targeting options — such as job title, company size, and industry — allow you to reach the right people with precision, increasing the likelihood of conversions. And because of its B2B focus, LinkedIn users are more receptive to business-related content, making ads particularly effective for lead generation, B2B marketing, and driving qualified traffic.
LinkedIn ads can be more expensive than those on other social media platforms, but the cost reflects the value of reaching a more specific, high-intent audience. Higher conversion rates, better-quality leads, and increased visibility within a professional network often result in a greater return on investment (ROI).
LinkedIn Analytics provides you with a wealth of information about your company page, which you can use to tweak your strategy and get better results.
Some of the key metrics you can look at include:
Loomly’s Advanced Analytics can also help you get a deeper understanding of how well you’re doing on LinkedIn.
With a worldwide network of hundreds of millions of professionals and sky-high engagement, there’s no better place than LinkedIn to establish your authority, make valuable connections, and find top talent that helps you grow.
The key is to use it the right way: